By Jim Calfa: Mike Tyson says Errol Spence shouldn’t take the rematch with Terence Crawford right away because feels he should take a “couple” matches beforehand before getting back in the ring with the Omaha, Nebraska native.
Tyson believes Spence (28-1, 22 KOs) can return from this loss because he took a worse beating in his own career when he was stopped in the tenth round in 1990 in his loss to James ‘Buster’ Douglas. Tyson came back to capture the WBA & WBC belts and enjoyed off & on success before retiring in 2006.
Former IBF, WBA & WBC welterweight champion Spence, 33, has already activated the rematch clause in the contract to force a second fight with Crawford, so it’s unlikely that he’s going to heed Tyson’s advice of taking a “couple” of fights before facing Terence again.
The problem is Crawford is up here in age at 36 and is likely to retire soon. After 15 years as a pro, Crawford finally got his first significant win, albeit against weight-drained and some believe car crash-wrecked Spence.
Crawford doesn’t care and is looking to use the win to catapult him into a mega-money fight against the winner of Saturday’s fight between Canelo Alvarez and Jermell Charlo at 168.
That would seem to be a sad, hopeless pipe dream on Crawford’spart, but you can’t blame him for wishing for that to happen.
Crawford has become spoiled after finally getting a big fight, and he doesn’t want to return to taking regular fights against non-stars. We see that all the time with fighters.
They get a big payday, and then they sit on the sidelines, waiting and waiting for another big fight, which sometimes never happens. They end up wasting their career. Andy Ruiz Jr. is a prime example of that.
“Errol didn’t get his a** whooped worse than I did with Buster Douglas, and look at me, I came back. I know he’s not talking about retirement,” said Mike Tyson to the ESNEWS site.
“Have a couple of fights, then come back and fight him. He doesn’t even have to fight Terence, fight somebody else, fight Charlo. Him & Charlo don’t want to fight because they have the sametrainer[Derrick James]. That’s bull s**t.
“‘If you’re my friend, you have to fight me and help me feed my family.’ That’s disrespect, that’s not respect. That’s what fighting is all about, helping the other guy, not putting them down. Fighting them isn’t putting them down,” said Tyson.
