Don’t get your hopes up too high, but the fantastic year of boxing in 2023 might just have gotten better as ESPN.com's Mike Coppinger recently went on the March 3rd edition of the boxing program, “Max On Boxing”, hosted by Max Kellerman to give fight fans some hope as to potential good news between the mega-fight that is Errol Spence Jr. versus Terence Crawford, to determine the best welterweight after Floyd Mayweather.
We are now hearing reports that the two fighters are speaking once again, but it is hard to get your hopes up after the colossal squandered opportunity of making the fight last fall when the weight of the boxing schedule was built around it, and when it didn’t happen - 2022 went out with just a small whimper as opposed to a triumphant call to arms to each and every fan of the sport.
“I have been told Spence and Crawford have been talking directly over the phone,” said Coppinger on “Max On Boxing”. “[they] are trying to see if they can salvage [this fight] somehow, some way without the promoters and networks involved, and I am told they agreed on a purse split.”
The endless saga of Spence v. Crawford has played out like a soap opera or novela as one of the talking points, though never confirmed was Crawford didn’t like one of the prior deals based around access to money and see the sum of all the parts in terms of profits, such as possibly concession sales, etc. The fact that the two might, and I use that word with all my might, MIGHT have come to an agreement on a form of justifiable compensation could make the fight possible.
“[after this agreement] Team Crawford sent over a memorandum of understanding to PBC [Premier Boxing Champions, the entertainment group who Spence Jr., has fought with for his whole career] earlier this week,” furthered Coppinger. “Again, I fully expect Errol Spence to push forward with [his] fight against Keith Thurman, and Terence Crawford has a mandatory against Alexis Rocha to keep his title, at [we] have movement in the background, and if not now - maybe in the future.”
As boxing fans, part of the occupation of the obsession is a disappointment. We didn’t get Riddick Bowe versus Lennox Lewis, nor did we get Sergey Kovalev versus Adonis Stevenson. Often times the consumer is told what they should want, rather than the market driving the fights themselves, somewhat the opposite of business as a whole. In short, the consumer is mostly wrong in boxing as the fights we most want to see get dragged along for far too long. Crawford and Spence being just another example.
“When I hear stuff like that, and if [the fight] doesn’t get made I look at PBC,” said Max Kellerman, after Coppinger’s monologue. “The fighters are independently trying to work it out, right? That the [PBC] doesn’t think their guy [Spence] can win. Spence thinks he can win, because Spence is a real fighter, Terence Crawford thinks he can win. Why? What is getting in the way of the fight. According to [Coppinger’s] reporting and analysis, the last time around it was things coming from the PBC side, not being transparent, not giving Crawford a deal that anyone would sign.”
