Terence Crawford Confirms He’s Fighting Errol Spence July 29th
The long awaited Undisputed world welterweight title fight between unified three belt champion, Errol Spence and the WBO title holder Terence Crawford is apparently on for July 29th in Las Vegas. This after Crawford confirmed Thursday afternoon in an Instagram video and on Twitter that he will in fact square off in one of the more highly anticipated fights of the Last five years in the lower weight classes.
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“What’s up everybody?! The wait is over. It’s game time. Errol Spence, Terence Crawford. July 29th, Las Vegas, Nevada. Everybody come out, show support and watch me ‘fry this fish.’ (making fun of Spence)” Crawford said in the video.
Crawford also put a Tweet out with a PBC/Showtime Boxing fight promo photo in it a short time later,
It is expected that Showtime and Premier Boxing Champions will make the official announcement of Spence-Crawford for July 29th later on Thursday or Friday morning at the latest.
If in fact the fight is agreed to and signed off on for later in the Summer, it will end a near four-year odyssey of Spence and Crawford posturing and goading each other to finally agree to fight for all the 147 lb. belts. The two sides had been negotiating all last Fall, but Crawford, 39-0, elected to put their undisputed fight on hold and instead make a WBO title defense in his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska against David Avanesyan in December. Crawford TKO-ed Avanesyan in front of a roaring sold out downtown Omaha Arena.
Meanwhile, Spence, 28-0, has been on ice ever since his last title defense, where he stopped Yordenis Ugas in 10 rounds to gain the WBA belt. Still, Spence is considered the “A side” of this showdown holding the more coveted WBC/WBA and IBF titles. And, Spence has also repeatedly fought on pay-per-view in front of large audiences, including three times in front of large stadium crowds in world title showdowns at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas
While it doesn’t quite rise to the level of the epic first meeting between Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas “Hitman” Hearns for welterweight supremacy 42 years ago in Las Vegas, this bout is still in that neighborhood of significance.
Five decades ago, Leonard and Hearns were both in their mid-twenties and had become sensational fighters on network TV before eventually fighting in their mega-fight on closed circuit TV in September of 1981. Leonard ended up rallying and stopping Hearns in the 14th round handing “the Hitman” his first defeat.
Spence and Crawford are both older, in their 30s, and that’s part of the frustration from observers and fans that they could have seemingly agreed to fight at least a couple of years ago against each other.
Part of the complication was that Crawford was tied to Top Rank Boxing and promoter Bob Arum and Premier Boxing Champions was refusing to do any kind of a joint promotional and broadcast deal for the world welterweight showdown while Crawford’s relationship existed with top rank. But Top Rank and Spence parted in an ugly way with Crawford suing Arum and the promotion for money and for the inability to make a Spence undisputed fight a reality after having contractually promising to do so.
So the Nebraska native is essentially been a promotional free agent for the better part of a year and a half and now has finally agreed to the mega-bout.
Crawford is the former Undisputed junior welterweight world champion, who vacated and moved up and became WBO title holder quickly and has made six defenses.
Meanwhile, Spence first won a world title by defeating England’s Kell Brook for the IBF championship in 2017 and later unified by beating Shawn Porter by decision for his WBC crown in September 2019. The Texan Spence added the WBA championship with the decision win over Ugas last year.
