Errol Spence Jr. vs. Terence Crawford | Showtime PPV - July 29, 2023

[Ruthless-RKO]

It won't happen, but the best thing they could do was appear on a double bill together to raise awareness and promote their fight.

This would never happen.

[keithmoonhangover]

It won't happen, but the best thing they could do was appear on a double bill together to raise awareness and promote their fight.

This would never happen.

I said it wouldn't happen, although Tyson and Foreman did a double bill.

[Ruthless-RKO]

It won't happen, but the best thing they could do was appear on a double bill together to raise awareness and promote their fight.

This would never happen.

I said it wouldn't happen, although Tyson and Foreman did a double bill.

Foreman wasn't a diva was he?

There have been a lot of cards with 2 decent co feature bouts in the past.

[keithmoonhangover]

This would never happen.

I said it wouldn't happen, although Tyson and Foreman did a double bill.

Foreman wasn't a diva was he?

There have been a lot of cards with 2 decent co feature bouts in the past.

No, but he went from Arum to King to make it happen...... if memory serves. I could never understand how Tyson-Foreman didn't happen. I guess it was another case of the sums not adding up.

[Thomastearns]

The main problem is the sanctioning bodies.

Spence holds the WBA, WBC and the IBF.

Crawford holds the WBO.

So surely even just one of these crooked self serving agencies could make either Spence the mandatory challenger for the WBO or make Crawford the mandatory for any one of Spence's belts?

That way, they would have to fight or else be stripped and let someone else have a chance.

Who would complain?

No one.

As champions they need to fight and not hide behind boxing politics or complain about numbers not adding up.

In which other sport do you see the paying customers regularly being treated so badly?

If only our governments weren't so busy screwing us they might want to take a closer look at some of the antics that go on in top level boxing.

[Cent0089]

It is insane how loud both those guys are on social media now. Since their teams failed to make a fight, EVERY SINGLE word from their mouths is pure trash

[Thomastearns]

Good article on Dana White explaining just what's wrong with boxing.

"The UFC boss has often declared that watching boxing feels like a 'going out of business sale', and he reiterated that sentiment when discussing the sport with media members in New York."

"Just last night, one of his most marketable stars Israel Adesanya was knocked out in the main event of UFC 281 by Alex Pereira to lose his middleweight title. It was his third fight of 2022 against a legitimate top contender after having previously moved up to light-heavyweight in an effort to become a two-division champion.

"I think that's what makes this sport so great," White explained. "I don't mean to s*** on boxing but look at what's going on with the Crawford fight. The fight isn't being made that should be made... One of the things I think boxing did wrong was they got to a point where it became a 'going out of business sale'.

"Every time they put on a fight they're just trying to grab as much money as they can possibly grab and run. We built a brand, built a sport and when you show up here these tickets are expensive. Plane tickets are expensive, hotel rooms are expensive, it's not cheap to come to these type of things and you should get your money's worth.

"The other thing is pay-per-view, which isn't cheap any more either. Every time I would turn off the TV when I watched boxing I would be like 'God damn it, they got me again!' I don't ever want people to turn the TV off and feel that way about our product so we stack it from tip to bottom.

"I say this all the time but what I sell is 'holy s*** moments', so I want you to have three or four 'holy s***' moments throughout the night whether you're here live or at home and that's what we always set out to do."

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/boxing/t ... t-28477599

[Ruthless-RKO]

[Syntax Error]

Errol Spence is just rude.

Someone is filming him and trying to interview him and he's just walking!

Stand still man!

He should be grateful for the exposure, because outside of the hardcore fan, nobody knows who the hell he is.

[Bandog]

Maybe we'll get this fight when they are Pac's and Floyd's age. 36 & 38. Crawford is 3 yrs older though, so 36 & 39? Honestly, I don't give AF anymore.

[Ruthless-RKO]

Spence says he will fight May, June.

“I was gonna have a fight announcement probably like three, four days after my accident,” Spence said. “But, you know, stuff started hurtin’ and things like that, so we kinda pushed it back and [will] wait on an announcement.”

“Probably like around May or June – May or June, April, May or June,” said Spence, who didn’t give specific details about his injuries. “I’ve just gotta, you know, talk to my team, you know. Hopefully, you know, I’ll recover a hundred percent. I’m sure I’ll recover a hundred percent because I’ve been in worse accidents. I’ve been in worse accidents. But, you know, talk to my team, you know, and hopefully come up with a day that suits both of us and make it happen.”

[Ruthless-RKO]

Spence Not Interested in Fighting Pacquiao, Compares it To Holmes Beatdown of Ali

“I wouldn’t fight him, I probably wouldn’t fight him,” Spence said of Pacquiao in an interview with ESNews. “I wouldn’t fight him. Like you can see the stigma that—Larry Holmes is one of the greatest heavyweights of all time. One of the greatest fighters of all time. I feel like he don’t get the respect that he deserves. Or like people just don’t regard him. People really don’t just talk about him.

"I think that’s all because how he beat Muhammad Ali—he f---ed him up in that fight. I don’t really think people consider him [elite]. Nobody really talk about Larry Holmes. I think it’s all because of that.”

[Thomastearns]

Spence Not Interested in Fighting Pacquiao, Compares it To Holmes Beatdown of Ali

“I wouldn’t fight him, I probably wouldn’t fight him,” Spence said of Pacquiao in an interview with ESNews. “I wouldn’t fight him. Like you can see the stigma that—Larry Holmes is one of the greatest heavyweights of all time. One of the greatest fighters of all time. I feel like he don’t get the respect that he deserves. Or like people just don’t regard him. People really don’t just talk about him.

"I think that’s all because how he beat Muhammad Ali—he f---ed him up in that fight. I don’t really think people consider him [elite]. Nobody really talk about Larry Holmes. I think it’s all because of that.”

Good on Spence for saying that. Anyone else would jump at chance of a big payday against boxings biggest name.

Some things really are more important than money.

That Ali fight will forever be the lowest point on Holmes' career even if it was hardly Larry's fault.

Errol Spence's life story on the other hand is already the stuff of legends. He may be quiet, he may be modest, but he's the stuff champions are made of.

I'd still love to see that Crawford fight, if only to just get a better idea of how good Spence really is.

[keithmoonhangover]

I think Bud will outclass him on the way to an 9-3 decision.

[Ruthless-RKO]

Showtime Head on Crawford’s ‘Transparency’ Demands: Absolutely Baffling; Got to Have Certain Level of Trust

Showtime Sports President Stephen Espinoza doesn’t feel that the sticking point that apparently led to the breakdown in negotiations for the undisputed welterweight championship was a reasonable one.

Errol Spence, the WBA, WBC, and IBF 147-pound champion, and Terence Crawford, the WBO titlist, were engaged in serious discussions to face each other late last year. But talks unexpectedly nosedived, leading Crawford to pursue a fight with David Avanesyan, whom he ended up stopping in six rounds in December.

Spence is reportedly headed for a junior middleweight fight against Keith Thurman in the spring.

A key factor that led to the unravelling of negotiations, according to Crawford, was a failure to receive full “financial transparency” from Spence’s chief handler, Al Haymon, the founder of Premier Boxing Champions. Crawford apparently wanted Haymon to be forthcoming on the accounting but contends Haymon was ultimately not willing to do that. Otherwise, most other important terms were agreed to, including, according to Crawford, a willingness to fight without a guaranteed purse, the assumption being that Crawford was content with getting a percentage of the overall revenue from the fight.

The transparency aspect was important to Crawford because, as he himself has repeatedly put it, Haymon’s duty (fiduciary, etc.) is to look out for Spence and his interests, not Crawford’s. As a result, Crawford, a free agent who has never previously been involved with Haymon or featured on a PBC event, understandably felt that he needed as much protection as possible.

“So, you know, even though I knew I was getting f---ed in the long run, I just, you know, wanted a little transparency,” Crawford said in a much-publicized Instagram Live Session several months ago. “I said, ‘OK, if I’m gonna bet on myself, and I’m gonna go against all the odds, then I want a, you know what I mean, a little transparency.’ You know, I wanna be able to write off on, you know, things that’s gonna affect my check. Of course, I wanna see if the numbers add up to what they tellin’ me.”

Financial transparency, as Spence understood it, was that Crawford wanted an ability to have “approval over expenses” and other ancillary financial aspects. Spence, in a series of tweets last year, lambasted Crawford for what he felt were unrealistic demands, including his apparent desire to have the ability sign off on certain “agreements.”

In a recent interview, Showtime’s Espinoza echoed Spence’s frustrations, at least from the standpoint of Showtime. Espinoza was intimately involved in discussions for Spence-Crawford, as Showtime was expected to produce the card; Showtime has an exclusive arrangement to showcase fighters aligned with Haymon’s PBC. Espinoza simply feels Crawfords idea of transparency is not in line with business reality and that an element of “trust” is required.

"The transparency (request) is absolutely baffling,” Espinoza told FightHubTV. “He got that in black & white. I’ve seen the contract. It’s there in black & white. The reality is we collect the money, we do the accounting. You can’t do accounting without being transparent. It depends on what transparent means. To most it means I know what the revenues are, I know what the expenses are, I know what the deductions are, it’s all out in the open. That has never been an issue on this fight or any other fight that we’ve been involved with.

“Here’s where it gets a little more complicated. I get the right to approve expenses. First of all, I have a problem with that because what’s going to happen when I tell you, ‘OK, this is what TV production costs,’ and you say, ‘No, I think it would be cheaper.’ So, wait a minute. Now, I can’t produce it? We’ve been doing this quite a while. I know what it costs. … We’re not going to go into a promotion and have the risk of someone saying to us, two weeks out, no I don’t like that contract, I’m not signing it. Or go into it and say we’re waiting for a fighter signature and I don’t know when he’s going to get around to viewing this expense and signing it. It’s just not a realistic way to do business.

“You’ve got to have a certain level of trust,” Espinoza continued. “There are certain protections, disclosures you can do up front, but the reality is the ability to approve everything along the way, there’s no one who is ever going to do it. The reality is that there is no way people are going to go into it and start spending a bunch of money and then let’s say two weeks out somebody gets a bug up their ass about an expense and says, you know what, I don’t want you to spend any more marketing. Who’s going to go into a deal where you’re at someone else’s mercy until the very last second?”

Espinoza fears that Crawford’s demand for greater administrative supervision could lead to mishaps, perhaps even a debacle. By way of example, Espinoza recalled the ticket controversy ahead of the showdown between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2015. The public sale of tickets to the much ballyhooed welterweight match did not occur until less than two weeks before the night of the fight because of an allocation dispute between the camps of both fighters. Espinoza is concerned that a similar stalemate might occur if Crawford is given bilateral power.

“The reality is, if you’re asking to approve expenses, the question is, what if you don’t approve? What happens?” Espinoza posited. “We saw this, and this is a great example of Mayweather-Pacquiao. You remember it well. So, we had this weird situation where the tickets weren’t released until ten days before the week of. Why was that? Because the parties had mutual approval and they reached an impasse, and everybody was screwed.

“That is the cautionary tale. So it’s great to say, ‘okay, mutual approval,’ but what if you don’t approve? What are the repercussions there, and how is it resolved? If your position is, ‘No, it has to be mutual approval, and I have the ability to blow it up at any point up until fight night,’ you’re not going to get a lot of people taking that deal because you'll end up with something like Mayweather-Pacquiao but worse.”

[squiggy]

What a stupid situation.

[KiwiRider]

Urgh!
May they be broke by 40, and owe back taxes and child support.

[Jeff_lacy_ko]

The hangup according to crawford was accounting

He wanted an independent accountant to make sure he wasnt going to get screwed since he agreed to no guatantee

Its a very reasonable and easy request. I dont think that is out of line id ask for the same thing.

[Mexi-Box]

Good article on Dana White explaining just what's wrong with boxing.

"The UFC boss has often declared that watching boxing feels like a 'going out of business sale', and he reiterated that sentiment when discussing the sport with media members in New York."

"Just last night, one of his most marketable stars Israel Adesanya was knocked out in the main event of UFC 281 by Alex Pereira to lose his middleweight title. It was his third fight of 2022 against a legitimate top contender after having previously moved up to light-heavyweight in an effort to become a two-division champion.

"I think that's what makes this sport so great," White explained. "I don't mean to s*** on boxing but look at what's going on with the Crawford fight. The fight isn't being made that should be made... One of the things I think boxing did wrong was they got to a point where it became a 'going out of business sale'.

"Every time they put on a fight they're just trying to grab as much money as they can possibly grab and run. We built a brand, built a sport and when you show up here these tickets are expensive. Plane tickets are expensive, hotel rooms are expensive, it's not cheap to come to these type of things and you should get your money's worth.

"The other thing is pay-per-view, which isn't cheap any more either. Every time I would turn off the TV when I watched boxing I would be like 'God damn it, they got me again!' I don't ever want people to turn the TV off and feel that way about our product so we stack it from tip to bottom.

"I say this all the time but what I sell is 'holy s*** moments', so I want you to have three or four 'holy s***' moments throughout the night whether you're here live or at home and that's what we always set out to do."

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/boxing/t ... t-28477599

Dana Shyte is trash. Dude is ignoring that the only UFC fighters that drew top boxing PPV numbers was McGregor, Lesnar, and Rousey. Does Adesyan even draw 600K buys? I can't imagine he ever did, and I've not seen UFC release his last fight's numbers.

Boxing will refuel as soon as PBC and DAZN inevitably go bankrupt. I think they're both the worst culprits of this lull. Nether company know how to market fighters or make proper matches. DAZN was the one putting freaking Tevin Farmer as a headliner, ffs!

Even though people hated the days of Top Rank/GBP, it was much, much better era than what we have now.

[gilgamesh]

The main problem is the sanctioning bodies.

Spence holds the WBA, WBC and the IBF.

Crawford holds the WBO.

So surely even just one of these crooked self serving agencies could make either Spence the mandatory challenger for the WBO or make Crawford the mandatory for any one of Spence's belts?

That way, they would have to fight or else be stripped and let someone else have a chance.

Who would complain?

No one.

As champions they need to fight and not hide behind boxing politics or complain about numbers not adding up.

In which other sport do you see the paying customers regularly being treated so badly?

If only our governments weren't so busy screwing us they might want to take a closer look at some of the antics that go on in top level boxing.

Getting the Government involved in Boxing is the last thing you want.

[gilgamesh]

The hangup according to crawford was accounting

He wanted an independent accountant to make sure he wasnt going to get screwed since he agreed to no guatantee

Its a very reasonable and easy request. I dont think that is out of line id ask for the same thing.

Crawford is a p*ssy.

Biggest waste of talent in the history of Boxing.

At one time he was one of my favorite fighters. Now, I wouldn't even shake his hand if I met him.

[DrDuke]

The hangup according to crawford was accounting

He wanted an independent accountant to make sure he wasnt going to get screwed since he agreed to no guatantee

Its a very reasonable and easy request. I dont think that is out of line id ask for the same thing.

Crawford is a p*ssy.

Biggest waste of talent in the history of Boxing.

At one time he was one of my favorite fighters. Now, I wouldn't even shake his hand if I met him.

He's not a p*ssy, he's just dumb not to make concessions for the sake of a contract, which opens big opportunities.

[AngryGoon38]

Leonard was 25 when he fought Hearns first time, Tommy was 23, Crawford is now 35 and Spence 32, older than Leonard and Hearns rematch

Such a shame!

Pretty sure Leonard was retired at Spence’s age and he’d done it all.

SRL turned 32 in may of 1988.
He fought and won against LHW Donny LaLonde late in that year(1988).
He Did make LaLonde drop weight though. Down to SMW division. LaLonde's weigh in weight was 167 for they're bout.
If Crawford and Spence were around in the same era as SRL, they would've had a trilogy by now allready.
Modern Boxing has been poignant on incorporating Alot of Soap Opera and Talk Show elements, in order to try to be Extra Unique from MMA. It's Annoying and Dispicable. If Crawford and Spence were around in the 1950's, they would be in talks for they're 5th bout versus one another, instead of they're first bout versus one another. They're records would also be consisting of over 70 bouts apiece as well. Crawford would be 79-1-1 and Spence would be 70-2-1. I say this out of the speculation that if they had fought 4 times allready, it'd be Crawford up 2-1-1.

[DrDuke]

Leonard was 25 when he fought Hearns first time, Tommy was 23, Crawford is now 35 and Spence 32, older than Leonard and Hearns rematch

Such a shame!

Pretty sure Leonard was retired at Spence’s age and he’d done it all.

SRL turned 32 in may of 1988.
He fought and won against LHW Donny LaLonde late in that year(1988).
He Did make LaLonde drop weight though. Down to SMW division. LaLonde's weigh in weight was 167 for they're bout.
If Crawford and Spence were around in the same era as SRL, they would've had a trilogy by now allready.
Modern Boxing has been poignant on incorporating Alot of Soap Opera and Talk Show elements, in order to try to be Extra Unique from MMA. It's Annoying and Dispicable. If Crawford and Spence were around in the 1950's, they would be in talks for they're 5th bout versus one another, instead of they're first bout versus one another. They're records would also be consisting of over 70 bouts apiece as well. Crawford would be 79-1-1 and Spence would be 70-2-1. I say this out of the speculation that if they had fought 4 times allready, it'd be Crawford up 2-1-1.

It's so frustrating today due to a growth of the number of promotions, networks and versions of a championship title.

Boxing must be a monopoly to match the best vs the best.

[joshj909]

Leonard was 25 when he fought Hearns first time, Tommy was 23, Crawford is now 35 and Spence 32, older than Leonard and Hearns rematch

Such a shame!

Pretty sure Leonard was retired at Spence’s age and he’d done it all.

Imagine if boxers realised they could make millions, have a lasting Hall of Fame legacy and be retired by 30 instead of getting punched in the head desperately trying to establish their legacy for that final pay out before they're 40.