Topic: Boxing: Errol Spence vs Keith Thurman - page 12. (Read 7339 times)

You have to understand as well that they signed a contract before hand, so they must follow it otherwise, they might get a lawsuit and when the moment it's over, Thurman's career might be over as well.

So as much as you call this unprofessional, this is the right move for them. PBC and Al Haymon are very powerful entities. If they go against their will, you don't know what's going to happen on your career.

Showtime Sports president Stephen Espinoza has spoken publicly about the breakdown in negotiations that saw the mooted welterweight unification bout between WBO champion Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford  39-0 (30) and WBC, WBA and IBF boss Errol ‘The Truth’ Spence Jr 28-0 (22) fall apart.

Protracted talks for the all-southpaw battle took place last year but eventually proved fruitless.

Crawford, 35, from Omaha, Nebraska, had split from long-time promoter Top Rank and was negotiating the fight on his own behalf, but Espinoza doesn’t believe his self representation was the reason a deal could not be reached.

“I don’t think it was a lack or presence of a promoter (for Crawford) that caused it to break down the first time… I think it was just different expectations and not being able to get to the same page. And then at a certain point Crawford went in a different direction,” Espinoza told FightHubTV.

Crawford won the WBO welterweight belt from Jeff Horn with a ninth-round knockout in June 2018 after previously holding the WBC, WBA, WBO and IBF junior welterweight titles. He is also a former WBO lightweight champion.

Texan Spence, 33, has held the IBF title for six years after stopping Kell Brook in 11 heats in May 2017. Three title defences followed before he unified with WBC champion Shawn Porter in September 2019. In his last bout in April he added the WBA title to his hardware with a 10th round knockout of Yordenis Ugas.

And of course, to make him wake up to the reality where it's not right bringing the fight at 154 when in-fact the fight was originally ordered at 147 because that is where his belts are located. He was just having the easier way just because Al Haymon somehow got a good connection with the governing bodies that is why they are taking advantage of it.

Besides, I really don't believe that Keith Thurman is already on his limit just like what we saw on his last fight.

Even though I don't see Keith Thurman winning against Spence, I'm looking forward to him winning this match because of these reasons:

- to put Spence in an embarrassing situation where he keeps ducking Crawford but in the end, will just lose to post-prime Keith Thurman
- to make Spence stay at 148 and not push forwarding to 154
- to somehow devalued Spence's worth and value as losing to Thurman in this fight will make Spence's camp not able to demand a higher purse split if they will face Crawford in the future even if he's a PPV King and currently holds 3 titles at 148.

Hopefully, Keith Thurman can pull an upset against the heavy favorite, Errol Spence.

We will see what will be the outcome of this upcoming fight. If Thurman will make an upset probably, it will favor him
a lot in terms of his career and future money fight to come.

^ Had he been more active and not suffered that setback, he may have been able to become a champion and redeem himself against other opponents. As for Thurman rejecting a fight against a certain boxer in the past, that is also a common occurrence in the sport of boxing. Boxers and their teams have to carefully consider their options and choose the fights that make the most sense for them at any given time. It is possible that Thurman made a decision that he felt was best for his career at the time, and there is no way to know if that decision was right or wrong in retrospect. The sport of boxing is full of unpredictable twists and turns, and fighters must be able to adapt and overcome challenges in order to achieve success. We will have to wait and see how Thurman fares in his upcoming fights and whether he can make a comeback to the top of the sport. I am with Thurman anyway.

I bet Thurman was disappointed to himself because it took him almost 3 years before he gets active again as a lot of things has happened in the industry mainly in the welterweight division when he got inactive to the industry and one of those things is that the boxers that are holding the belts now are not that easy to defeat especially in his situation where he's still pulling himself together to adjust.

Still too early to talk about other the what if's in the future because it's not that yet clear whether he can weather Spence or not.

That's how things went and now they finally meeting each other it's a matter of the name behind no belt to risk but purely for the sake of entertainment and for those fans who are aiming to see who's going to be the best between these two great fighters, I personally see that if ever Thurman make an upset, he will negotiate and maybe a possibility to call for Crawford for a title belt,

Else, Spence will be ready to go for a rematch and give Thurman a chance for a title match opportunities.

I agree, he was once the top dog of this division, fighting the best in them and beating them all, until he got injured himself, and he was not the same anymore. So we can't blame him not fighting Spence prior, even if Spence call him our not. During that time, Spence is just coming up in the ranks and so just making a name for himself but he had the sight on Thurman as he call him out. But that unfortunate event in Thurman is that he didn't fight Spence when he was in his prime and Spence coming up as a new comer and maybe they treat him as no one that time. But now it's different, Spence is the champion and Thurman is no longer the champion.

^ Had he been more active and not suffered that setback, he may have been able to become a champion and redeem himself against other opponents. As for Thurman rejecting a fight against a certain boxer in the past, that is also a common occurrence in the sport of boxing. Boxers and their teams have to carefully consider their options and choose the fights that make the most sense for them at any given time. It is possible that Thurman made a decision that he felt was best for his career at the time, and there is no way to know if that decision was right or wrong in retrospect. The sport of boxing is full of unpredictable twists and turns, and fighters must be able to adapt and overcome challenges in order to achieve success. We will have to wait and see how Thurman fares in his upcoming fights and whether he can make a comeback to the top of the sport. I am with Thurman anyway.

I agree, but it's the other way around, it's the promoters now and networks that hold this governing bodies and they just simply follow what this influential boxing promoter wants, like Al Haymon in this case. They have been in the shadows doing it, but this time it was very obvious.

A 147 lbs champion, then fighting a higher weight and his belt not on the line.

So this will definitely set a precedence in the boxing world and maybe we will see more of this kind of fights in the coming years.

~snip~
That specific fight made Thurman waste a couple of years and if only he didn't get inactive, he could've been a champion and redeem his loss towards another boxer. But it is what it is, now he is up against a man whom he did rejected few years back.

Right! That is the trouble now because Spence Jr. still got the bigger slice of the cake even if he doesn't have anything to offer at 154 because he is not the champion, it's Jermell Charlo. To be fair, they both belong to the same stable, the PBC, so this fight should be in plain 50-50 even if Spence is called the PPV King as there's no risks in this fight. These governing bodies should uphold their name and provide a fair and square fight, but I guess that's really too much to ask these days.

If not with that early knock down for sure, the decision might be different. I see that the fight may take into a draw if
Thurman did not fall in the early round.

He redeemed himself as we notice the aging Pacquiao in the last few remaining rounds but gladly he throw that power punch and Thurman didn't
anticipate that he can't ignore Pacquiao's punch, he underestimated him.

Moving on, Spence and Thurman's fight will be exciting even there's nothing to stake aside from the name behind their careers.

  It seems that Thurman's way of destruction of his opponent did not work on manny pacman pacquiao cause we can see that thurman feel the pain when pacaman going to hit him.
A silence fighters are very dangerous inside the ring and most of them are good in offense like pacman, inoue, magsayo and many more silence fighters who release thier anger inside the ring and not on way of trash talk. And also bronerthe same as thurman.

Yes, and on the other hand, there are reports saying that Spence duck Thurman when he become a champion. So we really don't know who duck who during Thurman's prime and reign as 147 lbs. They are still both under Al Haymon, but we all know that Spence is now the A-side in that stable.

But now we will have a chance to see it, maybe it was 2-3 years late though, as Thurman got injured and then he fight Manny because that is the biggest paycheck for him.

Thurman was barking at the wrong person. Additionally, Pacquiao, who does not speak English fluently, was only laughing because of the language barrier. Adrien Broner just laughed maybe because of the language barrier too. Broner thought Pacquiao would laugh at his trash talks instead of benefit from them.

I and MiliMil have the same opinion about this match. Errol Spence has a straightforward victory here. The corner of Thurman will stop it or the referee will. But I do not think it is true that Thurman avoided Spence for a long time. Thurman clearly desired the well-known names. The target was Mayweather and the other champions.

A wise move though that if let's say Errol Spence Jr. loses this 154 lbs non-title fight, he can go back to 147, still as a champion. This might also be the reason to now considered facing Terence Crawford as moving up won't be an option now for Spence as he can't even handle the likes of Keith Thurman that isn't considered a big threat now. The fight against Thurman and Crawford can possibly be organized this year if the original plan will follow.

Unfortunately, what I did say is just valid if Keith Thurman will really beat Errol Spence Jr. as in every aspect, Spence beats Thurman. Even if I'm not backing Spence to win, it's clear to anyone that Thurman doesn't have the edge in beating Spence.

Upsets do happen though but not expecting that thing to happen in this match.

For me, this fight is a disappointment as well and it has gotten worse after Spence wanted the fight in the higher division and the lame WBC allowed it. But I believe this fight is still big. Maybe a minimum of 400k PPV buys but I hope I am wrong and people should realize that this is a nonsense fight. But this is all about business.

Definitely, the most anticipated fight that we want in this division is Spence vs Crawford. And now we have [Boxing]: Eimantas Stanionis vs Vergil Ortiz Jr - April 29, which is a true 147 lbs fight.

Then the David vs Garcia and Haney vs Loma, I think this is the fight that boxing fans are willing to pay to watch live and in PPV. This fight is just for Spence to move on because of the failed fight with Crawford and then picking as somewhat a still good boxer in Thurman but no belt on the line. So in cases he lost, he can go back to 147 and defend his belt. Very wise decision on the side of Spence, and too bad that Thurman want's to be his dance partner.