Terence Crawford is sticking to his promise to turn the biggest fight of his career into a fish fry.
The play on words in reference to the ‘Big Shark’ marketing campaign adopted by Errol Spence Jr., whose WBA, WBC and IBF welterweight titles will be at stake along with Crawford’s WBO belt in their forthcoming undisputed championship. The unbeaten three-division champ expanded on that claim during their official announcement press conference Tuesday at The Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills, California.
“I’m gonna gut him,” Crawford told host Brian Custer. “I’m gonna feed him to everybody that eat fish in here. “You (Spence) call yourself the ‘Big Fish.’ We gonna have enough food for everybody… put some potatoes on the side of it, too.”
Crawford (39-0, 30KOs) is an early betting favorite to prevail in their July 29 Showtime Pay-Per-View event from T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The switching-hitter from Omaha, Nebraska is listed as a -150 favorite according to bet365 sportsbooks, which has Spence (28-0, 22KOs) as a slight +120 underdog to prevail in their full unification bout.
Spence is second only to WBA strawweight titlist Thammanoon Niyomtrong among the longest active male titlists. His IBF reign began with an eleventh-round stoppage of Kell Brook in May 2017 on the road in Sheffield, England. The undefeated Texan added the WBC strap in a September 2019 split decision over Shawn Porter. Two fights later and in his most recent outing, Spence won the WBA title in a tenth-round stoppage of Yordenis Ugas last April 16 at AT&T Stadium, home to the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys and where the local southpaw is a huge draw.
It is often argued that Crawford—a true champion at lightweight and junior welterweight who has knocked out all seven of his opponents at welterweight—is slightly ahead in the pound-for-pound debate. The other side of that claim is that Spence is the top welterweight in the world through longevity and credentials, hence the ‘Big Fish’ moniker.
Barring a draw or No-Contest, the winner of July 29 will settle the debate, though Crawford has already made up his mind on the topic.
“[A win] shows that I am the greatest fighter of this era,” insisted Crawford.
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox