By Chris Williams: Welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr. will be interviewed tonight for the first time since his terrible car crash two months ago on October 10. The IBF/WBA 147-lb champion Spence Jr. (26-0, 21 KOs) will be interviewed by Fox during the FOX PBC broadcast of the Tony Harrison vs. Jermell Charlo II rematch at 8pm ET. Harrison-Charlo 2 is taking place at the Toyota Arena in Ontario, California.
There’s been a massive amount of speculation about the injuries the 29-year-old Spence sustained in his car crash last October, and now he’ll get a chance to let the boxing public know the full details. Spence trashed his high-priced Ferrari 488 Spider in the car crash. The Ferrari flipped end over end several times before it came to a stop. Spence was fortunate to have been ejected from the automobile during the crash.
Bob Arum doubts Spence will fight soon
Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said recently that his sources had told him that Spence won’t be back fighting in the foreseeable future due to his car crash.
Arum raised doubts whether Spence would be able to fight WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford in 2020 or 2021. For Spence to be out of the ring until 2022, his career would be in bad shape.
Although Muhammad Ali was able to come back and still fight effectively after missing 3 years in the prime of his career, few fighters can miss that amount of time and do well.
“I don’t think it’ll happen next year, and I don’t think it’ll happen the year after,” said Arum to IFL TV about the Spence vs. Crawford fight. “I have grave doubts whether Errol Spence will be back in the ring in the foreseeable future, unfortunately as that may be. I have received some inside intelligence that allows me to say that,” Arum said.
So there it is. Arum says his “inside intelligence” has told him that Spence won’t be back in action in the “foreseeable future,” whatever that means. You can argue that it would be good for Crawford and Arum if Spence doesn’t come back soon from his car crash, because his guy Terence could lose.
Spence vs. Crawford would be huge fight
We saw last Saturday Crawford getting dropped against little known Egidijus Kavaliauskas, and he was getting worked over pretty well. If Kavaliauskas hadn’t gassed out, he might have beaten Crawford.
Hopefully the news from Spence is positive about his health, and his ability to return to action in 2020 at 100%. There’s some big fights available for Spence if/when he does return to the ring starting with a unification match against Crawford.
Spence recently defeated WBC welterweight champion Shawn Porter (30-3-1, 17 KOs) in winning an exciting 12 round split decision on September 28 on Fox Sports Pay-Per-View. The victory for Spence won him a lot of new boxing fans. They were looking forward to seeing him defend against Danny Garcia next on January 25, but that won’t happen now.
Harrison (28-2, 21 KOs) and Charlo (32-1, 16 KOs) are the headline attraction on tonight’s Fox PBC card. The undercard has two interesting bouts between the following fighters:
- Efe Ajagba vs. Iago Kiladze
- Karlos Balderas vs. René Téllez Giron