By Jake Tiernan: Shawn Porter says Errol Spence Jr will move up to 154 after his April fight without fighting Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis. Porter says that the undisputed championship that IBF, WBA & WBC 147-lb champion Spence (28-0, 22 KOs) will be walking away from by not fighting WBO champ Terence Crawford “don’t matter,” says Porter.
Porter says the Spence vs. Crawford fight will happen at 154, not 147. The fact that the undisputed championship won’t be at state is meaningless because fans from future generations won’t be focusing on that meaningless statistic.
All they’ll care about is that Spence & Crawford fought, and they’ll be interested in the action in the contest and who won.
Porter acknowledges that Spence is choosing to ignore & shut out Boots Ennis in the same way that Errol was disregarded by Keith ‘One Time’ Thurman when he held the WBA & WBC welterweight titles from 2015 to 2019.
It happens in sports where the belt holder or more popular fighter avoids the threats with the help of the maneuvering done by their promoters.
It hurts the sport, obviously, but that’s how its’ always been done. As such, Boots Ennis will have to wait until Spence vacates his IBF 147-lb belt or is tripped of the title by the International Boxing Federation if he chooses not to face him.
“I think he’s going to be Keith, and then I see him moving up,” said Shawn Porter to Fighthype when asked who he sees Errol Spence Jr fighting in 2023.
“I’ve been saying for a long time; I see Terence, Keith, and Errol fighting at 154 pounds. I don’t think they’re going to fight at 147. The belts don’t matter,” said Porter when asked if IBF, WBA & WBC champ Spence will stay at welterweight to fight WBO 147-lb champion Crawford for the undisputed.
“No disrespect, but the belts don’t matter. There’s history there. Everybody is looking at the history, but the true history is you’ve got two dogs, and that dog beat that dog. Not, we’ve got two dogs, and that dog has all the belts,” said Porter.
The truth is that only hardcore boxing fans pay attention to how many belts a champion has. Casual boxing fans only care about whether the fighter is popular, talented, and holding at least one title.
When you’re talking about more than one title, that stuff goes over the heads of the casual fans, as they don’t care about that stuff. Casual fans get caught up in the hype of a fight, listening to the trash talk, but bothering with knowing how many titles or what the ring records of the fighters are. They don’t have time or the inclination to focus on the minute details of a fight.
“That’s not what it truly is, but that’s what everybody sees and everybody knows,” said Porter. “I’m going to keep it 100. I have no clue what undisputed even meant because it didn’t mean anything to me.
“What it meant to me is to have fights that I had and the fights that I fought and being in the ring with those guys to do something great that people will remember forever.
“Think about it like this. If you watch a fight between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence, let’s say they fight, and let’s say somebody goes years later to watch that fight and turns it on. They’re not going to talk about the belts being in the ring. They’re going to say this guy was, ‘This, this and this,’ and that guy was ‘That, that and that,'” said Porter.
What Porter says is correct. For example, when fans look at video of famous fighters of the past like Julio Cesar Chavez, they don’t wonder what titles were on the line for his fights. They just want to see him in action against such and such fighters.
“Before the fight happened, ‘We thought this,’ and before the fight, ‘We thought that. Watch this.’ Somebody is going to say, ‘Oh yeah, I remember; it’s for all the belts.’ That’s not part of the narrative,” said Porter. “They’re making it part of the narrative.
“Absolutely, 100%,” said Porter when told that Spence is ignoring & shutting out Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis, not giving him a chance to fight him in the same way Keith Thurman did to him earlier in his career. Spence was unhappy with Thurman not giving him a title shot around 2016 & 2017, but now Errol is doing the same thing to Boots Ennis.
“We learn from those who come before us. Boots don’t know the way that Errol didn’t know, and I didn’t know why Mayweather wasn’t saying my name. He just doesn’t know,” said Porter.
You can argue that when Spence sees the young lion Boots Ennis, he’s thinking that this guy could potentially beat him real bad, and end his money-making potential. In other words, Ennis can wreck the good thing that Spence has going on, scooping up money like he has a license to print.
Spence isn’t about to let Boots ruin that for him, even though it’s not a certainty that he would lose that fight. The risk is too high for Sppence, so he’d rather vacate his IBF title to avoid having his oil well go dry on him.
“My dad told me, ‘You’re never going to get in the ring with Mayweather,” said Porter. “He’s not going to give you that fight. So who else do you want? What are your other goals?” That’s how I let it go.
“It took my dad to explain to me that this guy is on a whole another level in terms of the money he commands and the stardom that he has. You’re not up there, and he won’t look down on you. That’s what it is.
“No disrespect to me and my skills as a fighter. No disrespect to me as a person and all that. That’s where Errol is now.
“That’s how it was when I fought Errol. It was like, ‘Don’t nobody believe it, so let me shut them all up.’ It’s the same thing like that,” said Porter when asked if Spence might choose to fight Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis because soo many boxing fans believe he’s the best and that he doesn’t want to fight him.
“I can definitely see that from Spence. I can see Spence say, ‘Hey, there are no more options. Everybody else that was on my level, they’re not there. They don’t want it. Give me this man. Let me shut his mouth,'” said Porter about Spence.