By Allan Fox: Terence Crawford says he hasn’t heard anything from Errol Spence yet about whether he’ll activate the rematch clause in the contract to force a second fight.
It wouldn’t be a total shock if Spence chose not to take the rematch because he needs to move up to 160 or 168 and get a couple of fights under his belt before he starts thinking about facing Crawford again.
Moving to 154 won’t be nearly enough for Spence because he walks around at a solid 180. Spence should move up to 168 and go after a fight with Canelo Alvarez or David Benavidez.
Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs) states that he’ll honor the rematch clause if Spence (28-1, 22 KOs) chooses to go in that direction. He stopped the previously unbeaten Spence in the ninth round last month on July 29th in a fight that wasn’t competitive, largely due to how drained & weak Errol was.
There’s talk that Spence had drained down from 190 lbs to 147 during camp, meaning that his training to trim off 53 lbs, with most of it being pure muscle. Losing that much muscle weight to compete at 147 or even 154 is insane.
Crawford’s fans have insisted that Spence was as good as always, choosing to ignore what was clear to see from his listless performance. Spence looked like he’d just swum the English Channel and had nothing left when he entered the ring to face Crawford.
“I haven’t heard anything yet. Like I said before, it’s in the contract, so it’s not ‘if I’m open to it or not.’ It’s in the contract,” said Terence Crawford to Fight Hub TV when asked if the rematch with Errol Spence Jr. is happening.
Assuming Spence isn’t going to activate his rematch clause, Crawford will be fighting at 154, but he’s not going to get a fight with Jermell Charlo this year. Crawford will need to fight someone else or sit idle for the remainder of 2023, which is probably what he’ll do. Crawford is a Gary Russell type, fighting only once a year, if that.
“Errol gave me the opportunity and the shot to become the first male boxer, undisputed in any division in the four-belt era,” said Crawford. “I honor that, and if he was to come to me or activate his rematch, then I honor that.”
Crawford still basking in glory
“It feels great because part of my whole career, I’ve been hit with the, ‘He was over the hill’ or ‘He wasn’t that good’ or ‘You’re not fighting nobody’ or ‘You fighting tomato can.’ So I was always hit with negative feedback because of how well I performed in these big fights,” said a bitter-sounding Crawford, who, like some older people, is dredging up the past and making a big deal about it.
With the way Crawford is still bitter about not being glorified for his wins over his lackluster past opposition, he’s sounding like he’s not savoring his win over Spence.
You can’t blame the boxing public for not glorifying Crawford over his past victories because he’s been fighting low-level opposition like Amir Khan, Jeff Horn, and David Avanesyaan.
“A lot of people, they wanted to see me struggle in certain fights, but like I said before in the press conference, I never struggled in not one of my fights ever, and professional. I always won with flying colors,” said Crawford.
The reality is fans didn’t want Crawford to struggle in his past fights. They wanted him to step up and start fighting quality opposition, which he wasn’t doing during his entire 15-year career.
“I never had a close match. I never had a match where you questioned whether I won or lost. So when you’re that much better than the competition, it makes the competition look lesser than you. So everybody felt as if I wasn’t fighting competition because of how well I performed.
“So to be able to perform better than I was in my recent fights where they said these guys were tomato, and they were over the hill, and they were washed up, and it was damaged goods, it just makes it more satisfying because I can look back and say, ‘Okay, well what about this guy that y’all said was going to beat me? I performed at a higher level than I did with the guys that y’all said were tomato cans.’
“So, it’s a great feeling, and it’s a great taste in my mouth to be able to say, ‘What now?'” said Crawford.
