Shawn Porter expects Saturday’s fight between Errol Spence and Terence Crawford to prove so competitive that both camps will be vindicated by having put a rematch clause in place.
The growing presence of rematch clauses in fight contracts are increasingly considered to be holding fighters back.
While that that ensured the highly entertaining – and, previously, widely considered unnecessary – third fight between Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder proved a positive, they have more commonly ensured unnecessary rematches, such as that last year between Devin Haney and George Kambosos Jr.
On Saturday at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Spence and Crawford will contest the undisputed welterweight title in the most sought-after fight since Floyd Mayweather fought Manny Pacquiao in 2015.
On that occasion there proved no need for a rematch, but Crawford and Spence have the right to force one this weekend in the event of suffering their first defeat.
Porter retired in 2021 after losing to the 35-year-old Crawford, two years after giving Spence, 33, the hardest fight of his career.
With the knowledge he has of both fighters he believes that they will prove so closely matched that they may not only have a rematch but fight for a third time – and to the extent that he doesn’t believe it possible to predict a winner until seeing Saturday’s opening three rounds.
“With [Kambosos-Haney] it really wasn’t necessary [to see a rematch],” Porter told ProBox TV. “He thought we would get a better Kambosos in the second; he guaranteed we’d get a better one. That fight wasn’t going to change; it is what it is.
“This fight right here, it’s going to be great, and it’s going to come down to the wire. A lot like my fight did with both of those gentlemen, and bearing this fight getting stopped on a cut, which I don’t think’s going to happen…
“Let’s say, hypothetically, something crazy happens and either fighter gets knocked out in the first five rounds – probably don’t need a rematch. But it feels necessary for this one to do a double. I think it may even be worthy for a triple.”
Porter has also previously said that the winner of Saturday’s fight – five days after that in which the great Naoyo Inoue was so impressive in stopping Stephen Fulton – deserves to be considered the world’s finest fighter.
“You put a gun to my head, and you tell me to pick someone,” Porter continued. “I’ll tell you, ‘I’ll close my eyes – turn me in a circle, and whoever I’m pointing at, that’s who’s going to win this fight’.
“I truly don’t know who’s going to win. I think that we need – the world needs – three rounds to even have a good idea of who’s going to win this fight. Those three rounds you see game plan. You see adjustment. And then you see another adjustment.
“So it’s going to take three rounds for us to even have a small clue as to who’s going to win the fight.”
