By Allan Fox: Errol Spence Jr’s trainer Derrick James says Errol will decide whether he wants to take the fight with Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford.
James believes that anything is possible for IBF/WBC welterweight champion Spence Jr (27-0, 21 KOs) when it comes to him choosing to face WBO champion ‘Bud’ Crawford.
The fans want to see the Spence-Crawford fight, but some things could prevent that contest from happening in the first half of 2022.
One problem is that Spence, 31, is coming off eye surgery for a torn retina he suffered during training last summer for a canceled fight against Manny Pacquiao.
It’s not likely that Spence’s management at PBC will want to throw him in with Crawford with Errol coming off eye surgery.
More importantly, the reported low PPV numbers for Crawford’s recent November 20th fight against Shawn Porter are worrisome because it shows that the Nebraska native can’t sell.
If the 130,000 PPV buys are correct for the Crawford-Porter fight, that’s the fourth poor PPV fight that Crawford has had. His previous PPV fights were against these fighters:
- Amir Khan
- Kell Brook
- Viktor Postol
Spence will decide on Crawford fight
“I’m just a trainer and not a manager, but anything is possible,” said James to Fight Hub TV when asked if we were going to see a fight between Errol Spence Jr. and Terence Crawford.
“I think anything is possible, but you never know. If Errol wants the fight [with Crawford], it’s going to happen.
“I know he has to feel by not being able to fight the fight, so I’m not going to touch on it,” said James when asked if Spence felt bad on not being able to get the fight with Manny Pacquiao after watching him lose to Yordenis Ugas last August.
“I feel like we missed an opportunity, but it’s life,” said James on Spence’s eye injury getting in the way of him getting a massive fight against Pacquiao. “You have a detached retina, and you can’t go back on that.
“He [Spence] still wanted to fight with the detached retina, but they wouldn’t approve.
“There are a lot of fights out there for him, and he’s looking forward to them.
“You’re thinking about someone that type of opportunity getting another opportunity to be able to fight again. We’ll see him get in and get some fights,’ said James.
James on Crawford vs. Porter
“He [Spence] made the face because of Kenny Porter, not because of the fight, and we told him to leave in the 12th round. So don’t even watch the last round,” said James on Spence, leaving the Crawford vs. Shawn Porter fight immediately after it ended on November 20th.
“That’s what I told him. You don’t want to be part of a show. You came to watch the fight; get out of there. Basically, that’s what he did. He did what we asked him to do.
“So what everyone else is talking about [making a face], he did that because of the way Kenny [Porter] stopped the fight. If you listen to Kenny Porter’s interview, he said he would stop the fight before the fight.
“They said, “What did you see in the fight that made you think you needed to stop the fight?’ He said, ‘I didn’t see anything in the fight, and I was going to stop the fight because he what he did in training.’
“He already knew that he was going to stop the fight, and then Shawn, in retaliation, retired without talking to him. So it was a power struggle type of thing going on.
“Shawn said he was hurt more when he fought Errol Spence. His father stopped the fight that night, and that’s the game, and he can’t get it back.
“But he [Kenny] said going into the fight, ‘I knew I was going to stop the fight.’ He didn’t say if he gets hit, and he said, ‘I knew I was going to stop the fight,'” said James.
It’s an exciting interpretation Derrick has about Kenny Porter’s reasons for stopping the fight in the 12th round after Shawn had been knocked down a second time.
Kenny said that the preparation wasn’t what he wanted from Porter during training camp, and he seems to be hinting that he saw things that told him that he wasn’t ready for the Crawford fight.
You can only guess that Porter might have been worked over by some of his sparring partners in camp, one of which was Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis.
If Kenny saw Shawn getting manhandled during the camp by various sparring partners, it makes sense that he would pull him out in the 12th round after he’d been knocked down twice by Crawford.
There was too much time remaining on the clock in the 12th for Kenny to leave Porter out there against Crawford, who was firing on all eight cylinders by that point.
Jermell Charlo has to jump on Brian Castano
“[Brian] Castano only did what Jermell [Charlo] let him do,” said James on the Jermell Charlo vs. Brian Castano fight last July. “When Jermell was throwing punches, Castano was running and moving away.
“He [Castano] only threw punches when Jermell stood there in a particular pose, and that was the only time he threw punches.
“In the last four rounds when Jermell was on him, when I told him he was behind on the cards, he was trying to run for dear life. I think you just have to jump out there and jump on him and then fight your fight. Whatever the fight is, fight your fight.
“I didn’t say that,” said Derrick when asked if we’ll see a knockout victory for Charlo. “I’m like Kenny Porter. It depends on what happened in training camp,” said James.
IBF/WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Jermell Charlo must fight better against WBO champion Brian Castano in their rematch next February to get the victory.
According to James, Charlo (34-1-1, 18 KOs) only needs to “jump on” Castano (17-0-1, 12 KOs) for him to win the rematch, but that didn’t work last time.
Castano stood up to Jermell’s firepower and took over the fight in the last six rounds. Charlo, 31, was lucky to get a draw, as many boxing fans had Castano doing more than enough to rate the victory.
The Jermell vs. Castano rematch will be taking place in Houston, Texas, the hometown of Charlo.
This could mean that Castano will need to do a little extra if he wants to avoid losing or winding up with another controversial draw.
