Showtime Sports president, Stephen Espinoza has been a man of the people. An early adapter to Twitter, who took to the platform to interact with fans. Espinoza has never run from the media, and has been front-and-center during his tenure has seen Showtime Sports become one of the major players in boxing.
On Wednesday, during media obligations for Gervonta Davis versus Ryan Garcia, which takes place on April 22nd, at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, available worldwide on Showtime pay-per-view. Espinoza dispelled rumors that during Saturday night’s telecast that we will get an announcement of the long-awaited welterweight unification bout between the IBF, WBA, and WBC welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr. facing the WBO welterweight world champion, Terence Crawford.
Though the legal-speak of Espinoza might strike fear into the blue-collar fight fan, who worries that this might lead to political maneuvering, which could lead to the dreaded result of no fight occurring. Espinoza, when speaking to Fight Hub TV on Wednesday, was very positive about the current status of this fight.
“The good thing is we're much closer now than we were last fall,” furthered Espinoza to Fight Hub TV. “We are making progress. There are active discussions going on. At this point, there are no plans for anything on Saturday [in terms of an announcement of Spence vs. Crawford]. It doesn't mean it won't happen. We could stay up into the late hours get everything done…and everybody [fly in], but I hate to throw cold water on it because I want the fight as much as anybody, but I think people are sort of trying to connect dots that aren't connected.”
Espinoza also addressed internet rumors that TGB Promotions and Premier Boxing Champions, better known as the PBC, have a hold for venues in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Texas on June 17th. Many speculated this could be the date for Errol Spence versus Terence Crawford, but Espinoza was quick to explain that is not the case.
“You see TGB [Promotions] and PBC have [a boxing show on] June 17th, they've got a [date] reserved in Vegas and in Texas,” explained Espinoza on faulty internet rumors around this fight. “People are saying [that], they want to believe that's for Spence [versus] Crawford. It's not June 17. It never was!…by the way, you know, if I were Terence Crawford, I don't know that'd be crazy about going into Texas [to fight Errol Spence Jr who is from Texas]. Just like you know, [Spence] wouldn’t want [to] go to Nebraska for an undisputed title [fight], and when you've got two champions, it's probably going to be on neutral ground. It's probably in Vegas. but we're getting ahead of ourselves. There's still a deal that needs to be done and we're getting close, I'm optimistic that we'll be done.”
