By Allan Fox: Errol Spence Jr let Top Rank promoter Bob Arum and his fighter Terence Craword have it on social media on Thursday in reacting to comments from both of them made towards him.
Arum is putting the blame on Spence for the fight with Crawford (37-0, 28 KOs) not happening. He says it’s not the fault of PBC or Spence’s adviser Al Haymon for the bout with Terence not happening.
IBF/WBC welterweight champion Spence (27-0, 21 KOs) would like to fight WBO champ Crawford, but the money isn’t there for them to fight right now. A. It’s not a big enough fight to generate huge revenue and B. Staging the Spence vs. Crawford fight during the pandemic would result in less money at the gate.
Terence, 33, is proud about having captured three-division world titles, but his accomplishments don’t impress Spence because he’s won his world titles against no-name fighters.
Crawford: “I been champion since March 1st, 2014. 7 straight years is coming up, 3 different weight classes, If I was to retire right now the Hall of Fame would be the next accomplishment. Sorry, can’t say the same for….”
Spence: “All those accomplishments with names people won’t remember. I want to fight the best though cause lord knows I’ll use one y’all fav fighter as a tune-up.”
Bob Arum: “I talked to Al Haymon, he’s amenable to the fight. Spence is the obstacle. Spence throws out numbers and percentages. We believe Crawford will beat him. Unfortunately, Spence believes the same. Don’t blame Haymon, blame Spence.” [3 Knockdown Rule]
Spence: “Lien [lying] a** Bob strikes again.”
Boxing fans want Spence and Crawford to just fight, and not worry about the business angle. Spence isn’t just going to fight for lower money than the match with Crawford deserves.
If the pandemic wasn’t getting in the way of crowds and if Crawford wasn’t asking for a 60-40 split in his favor, a fight between him and Spence would be able doable. But right now, there’s too much pride on both of their parts for this fight to get made.
It’s quite possible that we won’t see Spence and Crawford fighting until one of them is starting to show signs of age and ring wear. Some boxing fans might argue that Spence hasn’t looked that good in his last two fights against Danny Garcia and Shawn Porter.
Those are excellent fighters, so it’s not surprising that Spence had to work hard for him to beat them. If Spence wanted to box those fighters rather than slug, he probably could have made it look easy.