By Robert Segal: Errol Spence Jr wants Canelo Alvarez once he deals Terence Crawford a pair of defeats this year. If Spence comes out the winner in his first fight with Crawford (39-0, 30 KOs) 12 days from now, on July 29th, a rematch is pretty much set in stone for later this year.
For a Canelo-Spence contest to materialize, both will need to come out victorious in their upcoming fights. Canelo (59-2-2, 39 KOs) defends against 154-lb fighter Jermell Charlo on September 30th on Showtime PPV in the first of a newly signed three-fight deal with Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions for Alvarez.
Canelo’s opponents for the second & third fights of his three-fight deal with PBC haven’t been revealed, but it’s been rumored that Spence is one of the two, with Jermall Charlo potentially being the other, provided he pulls himself together enough to return to the ring.
The unified welterweight champion Spence (28-0, 22 KOs) insists he’s not overlooking WBO belt holder Crawford for their fight, but he’s definitely on board with facing Canelo for his undisputed super middleweight championship if the cards play out the way he hopes.
There will likely be a lot of resentment from super middleweights like David Benavidez if Spence cuts in line to get a title shot ahead of him against undisputed super middleweight champion Canelo, but that’s how the business of boxing works.
Benavidez doesn’t seem to hold any interest in Canelo, and that’s probably not going to change within his next three fights.
“[A bout against the Mexican star Canelo] sounds good, but he has a three-fight deal, so I don’t know who it could be in that deal,” said unified welterweight champion Errol Spence to Fighthype about his interest in fighting Canelo Alvarez after he finishes up with his one or two fights against Terence Crawford.
It’s probably already written in by PBC for Spence to face Canelo in the second fight of his three-fight deal in May 2024 because Jermall Charlo likely won’t be ready to face the Mexican star yet.
Spence will need to be coming off a win over Crawford to get the Canelo fight because PBC won’t use him if he’s coming off a defeat. Ideally, Spence will wipe out Crawford on July 29th, and the Omaha, Nebraska native won’t want to fight him again for fear of taking another bad beating and having his marketability sink even further.
“Yeah, I might [fight Canelo],” said Spence. “It’s something that I would definitely [do]. It could happen; I don’t see why not. He and Al probably already got the names picked out,” said Spence about the other two names on Alvarez’s recently signed three-fight, $100 million+ deal with PBC.
