By Chris Williams: Terence Crawford may choose to force the rematch with Errol Spence Jr. to be contested at 147 rather than fighting him at 154, which would involve facing a full-strength, 100% version of the Dallas fighter.
We don’t know if Spence will reject taking the rematch at 147, as that would put him in a situation where he would once again be fighting at roughly 30% capacity, giving Crawford, a fighter who started his career at 135, a monstrous advantage.
Choosing to face Spence at 147 increases the chances of Crawford winning. More than ever, it’s important that Terence wins the rematch with Errol because he dreams of moving up to 168 to fight Canelo Alvarez or Jermell Charlo for the undisputed championship.
Crawford can’t afford to lose to Spence
If Crawford loses to Spence at 154, he can forget his pipe dream about fighting the Canelo-Jermell winner at 168. Losing the rematch to Spence ruins everything for Crawford, who will never get a chance to get that retirement payday from Canelo or Jermell.
So how does Crawford ensure there are no trip-ups for his rematch with Spence? You guessed it. Making the second fight at 147 to drain Spence, which greatly improves the 36-year-old Crawford’s chances of winning. When you get to his age, you have to gain any advantage you can get to stay in the game.
Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs) obviously knows that if he fights the former unified welterweight champion Spence (28-1, 22 KOs) at 154, it would be a whole different kettle of fish, and he would be a real war that involves taking punishment that would age him.
It would be a class move on Crawford’s part to fight Spence at any weight that he wants, be it 154, 160, or 168. After all, if Crawford truly believes he’s got the talent to fight Canelo for his 168-lb title, why wouldn’t he agree to face Spence at 154 or whatever weight he asks?
From Crawford’s perspective, he can’t afford to lose against a full-strenth version of Spence because then he would miss out on the enormous payday he’d get fighting Canelo.
That fight doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, but Crawford believes it will, and he’s obviously not going to take chances of him being eliminated by Spence.
Errol too big for 147
It’s pretty clear that Spence should have moved up to 154 or 160 long ago, but he’s been draining himself to stay at 147 for the sake of having more opportunities for bigger paydays.
The only reason Spence avoided getting beaten is because of his amazing talent and incredible power. Even with him being weight drained for years, he still had enough ability to beat the guys he was fighting up until facing Crawford.
Spence looked like he was fighting at 30% capacity last July when he drained down in weight to face then-WBO champion Crawford at 147. It’s rumored that Spence started camp overweight and had to take off nearly 50 lbs.
Ultimately, it proved to be too much for Spence, who looked half-starved and not fully cogent on the night of the fight. Crawford capitalized on the drained version of Spence, beating him up just like any top 15 welterweight would have done that night.