By Chris Williams: Shane Mosley says Errol Spence Jr’s loss to Terence Crawford resulted partly from a massive weight drop from 190 to 147 lbs for that fight, giving him the skeletal, crypt keeper appearance in his defeat last month on Showtime PPV.
The wisened old former multi-division world champion Mosley recommends that Spence (28-1, 22 KOs), at the very least, try moving to 160 and see how he feels before deciding on whether he should retire.
Shane says the 33-year-old shouldn’t have been fighting at 147, given how big he’d gotten, because there was no way that he could take off that much weight going down from 190 to 147 in training camp and being full strength for his fight with Crawford.
Floyd Mayweather Jr. also feels that Spence should try 160 or 168. When you’re talking about a natural 190 lb fighter like Spence, it would be better for him to go up to 168 or 175.
You don’t see light heavyweight champions Artur Beterbiev or Dmitry Bivol trying to boil down to 147 to fight. Both of those guys weigh 190 and only need to lose 15 lbs to make weight at 175. Spence went from 190 to 147 for the Crawford fight, which was insane.
Errol will have to forget about a rematch with Crawford, though, unless the Omaha, Nebraska native is willing to move up to 168 to face him, which at this time, he’s not.
If Crawford chooses to be stubborn & unyielding about his decision to go no further than the 154-lb weight, Spence should wash his hands of Crawford and let him decay in that dead division, which only has one semi-popular fighter in Tim Tszyu.
Crawford is kidding himself if he thinks Jermell Charlo will return to 168 after he beats Canelo Alvarez twice. With the money Jermell is going to get for those two fights, he’ll likely move to Beverly Hills and purchase a mansion on Rodeo Drive.
Spence was fighting at wrong weight
“It’s really up to Spence if he wants to do it, but looking at it from the outside in, it would seem like that would be a good decision,” said Shane Mosley to Fight Hub TV on whether Errol Spence Jr should retire or not.
“He’s got enough money, and he’s done a lot in boxing, and he’s really made his mark in the boxing world. It’s a possibility, but I know that me, as a fighter, knowing that you could beat a lot of guys up, I still got it. I can still do it. So you don want to do it.
“He has to make the decision whether he should retire or not. That’s the hardest decision ever. When I had to retire, I was almost in tears. It was a domination of something he couldn’t control in that fight,” said Mosley about Spence Jr’s loss to Terence Crawford.
“If it was a domination of something he could control or could control, then that would be something different. ‘I couldn’t control it, I got dominated. My senses are not good enough.’ But he believes he could do better, and he could control that. He could have been at 154,” said Mosley.
Of course, Spence can do better than he showed against Crawford. In hindsight, he should have renegotiated the contract for the fight with Crawford to bump the weight to 168 once he realized he would be too weak to fight at 147.
Errol should try 160
“He could not have fought at 147, and he probably wouldn’t have got dominated like that if he was at 154 or a different weight class,” said Mosley. “But being that he came down from 190, 185 down to 147 to try and fight, that’s a big deficit weight to lose.”
Chris Williams sees 168 or 175 as good weights for Spence’s next fight against Crawford or whoever. Again, if Crawford is going to dig his feet in the sand and be obstinate about it by insisting the rematch occur at 154, Spence should move on and fight Caleb Plant or David Morrell Jr at 168.
“So maybe try 154 or try 160 and see how he feels at that and then go from there. If he has a setback from that weight and he’s not able to bob & weave and move the way he needs to, then maybe he should think about it [retirement] to himself. But I know it’s so hard to say, ‘Oh, I’m going to retire.’ I was 46 years old, and I didn’t want to retire,” said Mosley.
