By Craig Daly: Showtime’s Stephen Espinoza says the Terence Crawford vs. Errol Spence Jr. rematch will “probably be next year” rather than at the end of 2023, as many had expected.
The reason why the Crawford-Spence II fight will likely happen next year is they’re “running out of time” to get it done by the tail end of this year.
Espinoza confirms that Spence (28-1, 22 KOs) has activated his rematch clause. He says that Crawford can’t try and maneuver out of the rematch by picking 147 as the weight class and then turn around and fight at 154.
Having the Crawford-Spence rematch moved to 2024 is not only better for Spence, who took a bad beating from Crawford in his ninth round knockout loss on July 29th, but it’ll work better for Showtime because there will be more interest from boxing fans if they’re given time to erase the image in their heads of Errol getting trounced.
Crawford vs. Spence rematch likely in 2024
“Errol did exercise the rematch clause. It’s not quite that simple. It’s not just saying, ‘Hey, I don’t want to fight at this class. I want to fight this class,'” said Stephen Espinoza of KO Artist Sports about Errol Spence Jr. activating the rematch clause for his fight with Terence Crawford.
“Look, it’s it’s a discussion. There’s no sort of immediate deadlines on it and deadline but look, we got a busy schedule for the rest of the year. We got a couple more events coming. I don’t think we’re going to end up squeezing it [Crawford vs. Spence rematch] in this year. It’ll probably be next year anyway. So we’ll figure it out.
It’s believed that Crawford doesn’t want the rematch and is more interested in facing the winner of this Saturday’s Canelo Alvarez vs. Jermell Charlo fight for the undisputed at 168.
Crawford has already said that he wants to move up to 168 to fight the Canelo-Jermell winner for the undisputed. Jermell also said yesterday that he’ll move down to 154 to potentially face Crawford next.
The 33-year-old Jermell says he doesn’t want to stay at 168, which suggests that he doesn’t think he’s going to win the Canelo fight.
If Jermell thought he was going to win, he’d be talking about staying at 168 for the rematch with Canelo, which will pay a lot more money than a fight with Crawford.
“It still could, but we’re running out of time, so, like, you know, we need to get it done if it’s going to happen this year. But again, I don’t think there’s any magic to it happening this year,” said Espinoza on the Crawford vs. Spence rematch.
Using weight to manipulate out of rematch
“The idea is you can’t use the weight class to avoid it. So the reality is if you are actually going to be at 54 for the foreseeable future, then that’s a good excuse,” said Espinoza. “If you’re going to stay at 47, that’s fine, but don’t say you can’t do the rematch because you’re at 47 and then take another fight with 54 right after.
“So it’s not just say, ‘I get to determine the weight.’ It’s sort of like, ‘No, let’s let’s figure out where are you actually going to be fighting at. If there’s a mismatch in where you intend to be fighting, then there’s not a fight to be made. But it’s not like somebody can manipulate and just say, ‘Nah, today I feel like going to 147, and in six months if I get a big fight, I’ll go to 54.’ That’s not really keeping the spirit of things.
“It’s sort of like that’s the underlying concept. No one should be trying to no maneuver out of it saying, ‘I’m doing this weight class.’ ‘Okay, if there’s legitimately you’re staying at 47. You don’t want to go to 54 Okay, great but then we shouldn’t be seeing you fighting above 154 in the near future if that’s what you tell us,'” said Espinoza.
