By Chris Williams: Errol Spence Jr revealed last Saturday night that he’s ready to move up to 160 to take on Canelo Alvarez for a fight in front of 100,000 fans at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Spence says he’s outgrown the 147-lb division, and he’s only 70 to 80% of what he could be due to the weight that he’s dropping to get down to that limit. Errol feels that he would be a lot stronger going up in weight to 160 for a fight against Canelo.
Canelo, said this month that he’d be willing to face Spence at 160 in the future. For the time being, Alvarez is unifying the 168-lb division, and he’s already off to a great start, capturing the WBA ad WBC super middleweight titles last Saturday night.
Spence was on hand last Saturday night for Canelo’s fight against WBA super-middleweight champion Callum Smith at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.
Spence wants Crawford and Pacquiao in 2021
Errol had been waiting round to try and unify the 147-lb division, but it looks like that’s not going to happen.
IBF/WBC welterweight champion Spence needs to face WBA champ Manny Pacquiao and WBO belt-holder Terence Crawford to complete his collection of titles at 147 to become the undisputed champion.
While it’s definitely possible for Spence to face Pacquiao in 2021, Crawford is a different story. Crawford wants a 50-50 split of the loot for a fight against Spence, and he does not understand that he needs to accept the 70-30 or 60-40 offered to him.
Unless Crawford wakes up and smells the coffee in early 2021 to accept the smaller money, Spence needs to move up to 160 to get ready for the Canelo mega-fight.
It makes sense for Spence to stay at 147 if Pacquiao is ready to face him in 2021, but Errol can’t accord to wait until 2022 or 2023 for Pacquiao to get time off from his senatorial job in the Philippines to face him.
If Pacquiao wants the fight with Spence, he’s going to need to face him next year, preferably early on. Spence can’t be hanging around looking needy with the hope that maybe Pacquiao will fight him in 2021. That’s a waste of time for Spence.
Spence: I can fight Canelo at 160
You can argue that Spence was there to scout out first-hand his future opponent Canelo Alvarez, to spot weaknesses that he can exploit when they face each other.
The unbeaten IBF/WBC welterweight champion Spence (27-0, 21 KOs) predicts that a fight between him and Canelo Alvarez (54-1-2, 36 KOs) an all-out war
“That could happen but we got to see how it goes, but like I said, I could go up to 160 and fight Canelo Alvarez,” said Errol Spence Jr to DAZN when asked last Saturday if he’d be interested in facing Terence Crawford now.
“I think it’s a great fight, especially at 160,” said Spence when asked if he’d like to fight Canelo. “I’m a guy that sucks down to 147.
“I really think people see 70 to 80% of who I really am at 147 pounds, especially when I got the [147-pound] WBC belt. It helped me go up in weight.
“I had the IBF and I had a 10-pound [rehydration] weight limit and things like that. It helped me a lot too, but I’m a guy that has outgrown the [147-lb] weight.
“I’m just hanging around because I want to be the undisputed champion at 147, but if there’s a great fight at 160, I can definitely go up to 160 and fight easy,” added Spence.
If Canelo chooses to stick it out to unify the 168-lb division in 2021, Spence will be a great fight for him in 2022. It would be better for Canelo to face Spence next year because it would give the Mexican star a mega-fight in 2021.
Errol predicts Alvarez fight would be a “war’
“I think it would be an all-out war,” said Spence when asked how a fight between him and Canelo. “We could have it at AT&T Stadium in front of 100,000+.”
Canelo facing Spence in Texas would be huge, especially if the pandemic is over with and large crowds are allowed back into stadiums. A fight between them would be ideal once the COVID 19 vaccine is made available to the U.S public in 2021.
Spence would fight a lot better than Callum Smith did against Canelo, and he wouldn’t fighting off the ropes, looking scared to let his hands go as we saw from the big Brit last Saturday night.
Canelo looked tired against Callum, but he got away with it because his opponent wasn’t throwing punches. The 6’3″ Callum wasn’t even throwing jabs to take advantage of his huge height advantage over Alvarez.
How in the world was Callum Smith ever a champion at 168? That’s what Chris Williams would like to know. Spence would be a 100% improvement over Callum for a fight against Canelo. There’s a real possibility that he would beat the Mexican superstar in the same fashion Floyd Mayweather Jr did.
Spence can do everything Mayweather can, but better because he’s got power and size.
Canelo won’t attract nearly as much interest facing the 168-lb champions Caleb Plant and Billy Joe Saunders as he would facing Spence. There’s no comparison.
IBF super-middleweight champion Plant (20-0, 12 KOs) has a decent-sized fanbase, but he’s nowhere near as popular as Spence.