Jimmy James – Steven Nelson, boxer, friend, and director of Crawford’s B&B boxing Academy spoke in an interview with Golden Era Boxing about how Errol Spence did not want to take the fight with Terrence Crawford.
In the interview, Nelson confirmed a few media reports to be true and assured Spence and Al-Haymon didn’t want the fight by lowballing Crawford.
“Crawford wanted at least 40 percent but accepted Spence’s low 35 percent offer because he wanted the fight, but Spence wouldn’t even guarantee that percentage, ” Nelson said. “It almost seems like they didn’t want the fight, because they knew Crawford wouldn’t take the offer.”
Regarding why Crawford took David Avenysian as his next fight, Nelson clarified that, “Crawford wanted to fight in December to stay active, and Virgil Ortiz’s team turned down the fight and only David Avenysian ranked 6th in the WBO accepted the short call.” Crawford said that he still wants to fight Spence by Feburary of next year.
When questioned regarding Spence’s new tweets where he stated he will move up in weight, Nelson agreed “I could see that as a duck move, because Jaron Ennis is his mandatory and Crawford really wants the fight, he would be cornered and wouldn’t want to lose his undefeated record with any of those two guys.”
Another interesting point was that Nelson didn’t see the same energy that Spence had calling out Keith Thurman in social media for ducking him.”Spence didn’t show the same energy to fight Crawford as he did with Thurman, and Thurman didn’t want the fight either. ”
After observing the whole saga of Crawford and Spence, I believe that Spence doesn’t want the fight. Spence was always quiet about fighting Crawford, almost to the point of not wanting to get interviewed by any reporter asking him about Crawford.
I remember in 2019, the first time Crawford and Spence met in the backstage of the same venue, that it was Crawford from a distance who approached Spence first and Spence looked very uncomfortable. Spence almost had the same awkward face expression Thurman had when asked about fighting him, like he didn’t want to be put on the spot.
Shortly after, Bob Arum approached the two as the media gathered around and Crawford asked Spence to his face “when would he fight him?”, and he replied “In the future.” It almost sounded like Ryan Garcia when he was asked by Devin Haney in the ring “when are we fighting?” and Garcia also replied “in the future”. Haney and Crawford were the aggressors and it’s normally a sign they actually want the fight.
Then we have that bizarre interview when Spence in another venue was asked about fighting Crawford and he replied, “Crawford’s should accept the 70/30 before I take it down to 80/20”. That was a very unrealistic offer to negotiate for a three world division and former undisputed champion to accept.
Crawford at minimum deserves 40 percent of the split, and to say otherwise is simply not realistic with the amount of money these two would generate in a fight.
At the Shawn Porter vs Crawford fight, after Crawford TKO’d Porter in the 11th round, reporters immediately tried to interview Spence who was in the stadium that night and when approached he didn’t want to take any questions and said “he had to take a flight back”. You would think he would have gone up in the ring and publically called Crawford to his face to announce it, but he didn’t, he left the venue when Crawford called his name – very telling!
One thing I will say for certain is that the promoters and managers will make a killing in this fight, and it is ludicrous to blame Al-Haymon for not making the fight. Spence fighting Eimantas Stanionis is not a money maker, and even if he went up and fought Sebastian Fundora, which is a dangerous fight, he wouldn’t make as much money as fighting Crawford. He won’t fight Jermell Charlo because both are close friends, so don’t believe the hype.
Crawford was ducked by many PBC and even Top Rank boxers. You can’t negotiate a fight when no one wants to take risks. It has nothing to do with promotions, it has to do with the fact that certain boxers don’t want to lose their undefeated record and transfer wealth, power and status to crown a new PPV star, who would replace their shine. Pacquiao didn’t want Crawford when both were in Top Rank and soon no one in PBC will want to fight Ennis including Spence, so stop blaming Crawford, it’s absurd.