By Jim Calfa: There’s a lot of talk about Errol Spence Jr. needing to bring Floyd Mayweather Jr. in as his new coach to replace Derrick James for his rematch with Terence Crawford to save his 11-year career.
Derrick James looked lost, without answers in Spence’s corner during the fight with Crawford last July, and it’s believed that if Mayweather were working that night, he would have had useful instructions that he could have given to Errol.
Whether Mayweather would be willing to come in as the replacement for Derrick is unknown at this point, but he would be an excellent coach to help Spence.
That said, Floyd has a lot of things going on in his life, and he might not be willing to work full-time as a coach for Spence in his training camp for a rematch with Crawford.
Mayweather has already given the former IBF/WBA/WBC welterweight champion Spence (28-1, 22 KOs) some sound advice, saying he needs to move up to 160 or 168. 154 isn’t enough of a move-up in weight for Spence to be at full strength at 100%.
Positives of Spence using Mayweather as his new coach:
- Ring IQ – can get the best out of Errol
- Experience
- Knows how to adapt
- Won’t leave him out there to soak up punishment if he has no chance against Crawford
But even if Spence has Mayweather as a secondary coach to help give pointers and be an assistant, that would be a massive help to him.
It’s clear from watching Spence’s past two performances against Crawford & Yordenis Ugas, that he needs a new trainer to take over for Derrick, as he’s taking too much punishment.
Should Spence replace Derrick James?
“I don’t think so. You win all these fights with the same guy, and then after your first loss, you’re looking for someone to blame,” said Jeff Mayweather on the Mayweather channel on whether Errol Spence Jr. should replace Derrick James as his coach for his rematch with Terence Crawford.
It’s easy for Jeff to say that Spence shouldn’t replace Derrick James, but if it was his career that was sinking into the depths and he was potentially looking at taking another bad beating from Crawford, he might think differently.
No one wants to get beaten up the way Spence did, so replacing Derrick with Mayweather is something to think about.
“I don’t know their relationship to that point, and Errol is the fighter, he has to make the decision on what’s best for him,” said Jeff on whether Spence should part ways with Derrick James.
“I hate to see that because they grew up together, and it’s kind of a slap in the face. Still, it’s his [Spence] career, and he may feel like he needs a change. It seemed like, to me, they’re looking for someone to blame,” said Jeff.
It’s not a slap in the face when a situation isn’t working. The reality, it’s smart to replace a person if it’s not working. If this were a toxic marriage that had no hope of being fruitful, would be smart to stay with that person?
If you don’t mind suffering for the rest of your life, stick it out, but things could be so much better if you moved on. That might be the case with Spence replacing Derrick James with Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Boxing great Oscar De La Hoya replaced coaches during his career, and so did Lennox Lewis. Sometimes it’s better to move on to different coaches to have different input and a change of scenery.
“When you’re blaming someone, you also have to think about what you achieved to get to where you’re at,” said Jeff. “I don’t know whose fault it is, but people make mistakes, and if you’ve been with this guy from day one all these years, y’all went through the hardest part of boxing that y’all are going to go through other than his loss.
“To me, it’s kind of a slap in the face, but it’s not my decision to make, so it doesn’t matter to me. That’s fighters of today because a long time ago, fighters didn’t blame their trainers when they lost fights.
“Guys like Muhammad Ali, great fighters, they rarely changed anything around them. Myself, I never blamed a loss on anyone. So if I’m going to blame anyone, I’ve got to blame myself because that person [the trainer] can’t fight for me, and that’s just keeping it real,” said Jeff.
Muhammad Ali never took a bad beating like Spence did until the final fight of his career at age 38 against Larry Holmes.
Crawford should make rematch at 147
“If I’m Crawford, I’m fighting at 147 again. You’ve already made it clear to the public that was a problem. If that was the problem, it’s going to be another problem the second time around.
“I think that’s what he’s going to say, but I would still make him fight me at the same weight,” said Jeff about Crawford needing to force Spence to fight him at 147 for the rematch.
Crawford probably won’t make a big deal about forcing Spence to come back down to 147, but if he’s with the same coach, Derrick James, it won’t help Errol to fight at 154. As the saying goes, ‘Junk in, junk out.’
