By Matt Lieberman: Errol Spence Jr feels that his clash against Terence Crawford this Saturday night is the biggest fight in the last 20 years. If this turns out to be true, that would eclipse Floyd Mayweather Jr’s fights with Conor McGregor & Manny Pacquiao. Those fights pulled in 4.3 million & 4.6M PPV buys, respectively.
I guess you can argue that the Spence vs. Crawford fight can be big without generating record-breaking PPV numbers. When Mayweather brought in over 4 million buys for his fights with Pacquiao and McGregor, it was a different era before piracy had gotten out of control.
Nowadays, it’s extremely difficult for fights to break the 1 million buy mark. Reaching the numbers that Mayweather hit is impossible now. If those fights had taken place in this era, they’d reached 1 million buys, but not much more due to piracy.
Mayweather was lucky that he fought in a different era because he wouldn’t have made the same money if he had his biggest fights now.
Spence-Crawford has generated a lot of interest, but Errol has pretty much had to do the heavy lifting to get fans excited because Crawford has mostly stayed in the background. When Crawford has given interviews, he’s given short answers to questions and comes across as defensive.
Spence expects huge fan interest
“This is way bigger. Pacquiao was kind of a shell of himself, and that was basically just a crossover fight,” said Errol Spence Jr to Sporting News when asked if his fight with Terence Crawford is bigger than his canceled clash with Manny Pacquiao a couple of years ago.
There would have been a lot of fan interest if Spence’s fight with Pacquiao had taken place, but nothing like the PPV numbers that his clash with Mayweather generated. Again, it’s a different era, and now impossible to bring in similar PPV numbers from back in 2015.
“It was going to bring a lot more fans that don’t watch boxing because Pacquiao is such an icon,” said Spence. “With the Terence Crawford fight, this is all about legacy. I feel this is the biggest fight in the last 20 years, especially on Showtime pay-per-view.
“This is going to be an amazing event. I can’t wait. I have to use everything I have to defeat him because I’m coming with it. I know he’s training hard, coming 100% focused, and his mentality is just like mine, and that’s to win and dominate me,” said Errol about Crawford.
Hopefully, Crawford comes to fight and not run around like he’s done in many of his fights. Fans don’t want to see Crawford running around, sticking his tongue out at Spence as if to say, ‘You can’t get me.’
“His accolades speak for themselves, and my accolades speak for themselves,” said Spence about Crawford. “People see us as two great fighters, the best in the world, and now we’re fighting each other for all the marbles.
“Inoue is a great fighter and put on a great performance, but the guy that he beat [Stephen Fulton Jr] was not in the top 10 pound-for-pound. We’re the two best fighters in our weight class. Me and him are top five pound-for-pound in the world.
“So this is for all the marbles. Whoever wins this fight will be the #1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world. I don’t care if Ring Magazine don’t rank us pound-for-pound in the world. By the public, w should b #1 pound-for-pound in the world because I defeated great opponents.
“Me and Crawford don’t have to fight for a BMF title. Whoever wins this fight, will be the baddest mother f***ker in combat sports period. So, we just need everybody to tune in to Showtime pay-per-view on Saturday night. So I can put on a great show and a great performance, and everyone can realize who is the BMF,” said Spence.
