By Barry Holbrook: Moments ago it was announced that Errol Spence Jr will be defending his IBF/WBC welterweight straps against Danny Garcia on December 5th in front of a live crowd of fans at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The Spence vs. Garcia fight will be shown on Fox Sports pay-per-view.
Tickets for the Errol Spence Jr (26-0, 21 KOs) vs. Danny Garcia (36-2, 21 KOs) will go on sale next Wednesday.
The Spence-Garcia fight was previously scheduled to take place behind closed doors on November 21st, but the promoters for the two have chosen to move it to the new date on December 5th to take advantage of the state of Texas allowing fans into sporting events.
Spence vs. Garcia is the second big fight involving a Premier Boxing Champions fighters to be moved to a venue in Texas.
The Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis vs. Leo Santa Cruz fight was recently moved from October 24th in Uncasville, Connecticut to October 31st at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.
That fight will now be taking place in front of fans. It’s possible that 15,000 fans will be in attendance for that match.
With Texas allowing fans, we could see a sudden deluge of important fights being moved to that state to take advantage of limited sized crowds being allowed.
The downside of Spence’s match against the 32-year-old Garcia being moved to December 5th is the problem of it bumping heads with the DAZN event on the same night between undefeated lightweight phenom Ryan ‘Kingry’ Garcia and Luke Campbell.
Going up against Garcia-Campbell could hurt the PPV sales for the Spence-Garcia fight on Fox, which is expected to be priced in the $70 region. It’s still unknown who will be on the undercard for the Spence vs. Garcia fight card, but it’s going to have to be someone special to lure fans into paying to watch this fight rather than tuning in to see Ryan Garcia and Luke Campbell battle it out.
The pandemic is still expected to be hurting employment in the United States, and the boxing fans don’t have a lot of money to be paying to watch cards right now. Danny Garcia is a good fighter, but he’s lost two out of his last five fights at 147.
Garcia’s 3-2 record makes him a questionable choice for Spence to be fighting on Fox PPV on December 5th. It’s not a bad fight if it were to be shown on regular Fox as part of the basic cable, but it could be a blunder on PBC’s part in asking boxing fans to pay to watch it, especially during the pandemic.
What Danny ‘Swift’ an even worse choice for Spence t be fighting is the fact that he lost to his last opponent Shawn Porter in 2018. Porter beat Garcia by a 12 round unanimous decion