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Errol Spence listened to what Terence Crawford had to say when they were discussing a planned superfight.
The unbeaten and unified WBC/WBA/IBF welterweight titlist listened again when Crawford went live on his Instagram channel to explain why he decided to go in a different direction.
Now is the time he has decided to respond.
Spence questioned some of what Crawford had to say and refuted other parts of his 21-minute speech from Tuesday evening. The exchange comes two weeks after their fight fell apart and nearly a month after the last communication made during months-long negotiations. It ended with Crawford (38-0, 29KOs) instead signing with BLK Prime, a subscription video on demand outfit now branching into boxing beginning with Crawford’s WBO welterweight title defense against David Avanesyan on December 10 in his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska.
“Why it take you [two] weeks to say something,” Spence questioned Wednesday evening. “You tried getting your sh!t together Lol. We can see you looking at some flash cards or piece of paper, good you speaking now. I was worried.
“Facts is I’m fighting somebody else. [Crawford] is too but a tune up.”
The fight has been desired for as long as Spence (28-0, 22KOs) and Crawford have enjoyed overlapping welterweight title reigns. Crawford won the WBO belt in a ninth-round knockout of Australia’s Jeff Horn on June 9, 2018. The fight came one week prior to Spence making the second defense of his IBF title in a first-round knockout of Carlos Ocampo.
Spence has since added the WBC and WBA titles to his collection, with Crawford—who is 6-0 (6KOs) at welterweight, all in title fights—holding the last chip. Spence name-dropped Crawford after his tenth-round stoppage of Yordenis Ugas to win the WBA belt and defend his WBC/IBF titles, though it took a couple of months for negotiations to finally begin.
By that point, Crawford was months removed from his previous promotional contract with Top Rank, against whom he has an active lawsuit. It was hoped that the lack of political restrictions would help push the fight over the line, only for talks to go from private and seemingly productive to a dead stop and with ugly details since making their way into the public eye.
Among the claims made by Crawford was that he brought to the table an offer from two hedge fund companies that would have guaranteed each boxer $25,000,000 apiece. Crawford insisted that the offer was dismissed by Al Haymon, Spence’s adviser and creator of Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) which would have presented the undisputed welterweight championship and wasn’t interested in bringing anyone else aboard.
“Al told me straight up, ‘I’m not letting anybody touch this fight,’” Crawford said of direct conversation with Haymon. “Like, alright cool. But I’m like, ‘Why?’ He like, ‘Why would you wanna put a ceiling on yourself? Why you wanna put a cap on yourself?’ I’m like, ‘Well, that’s not putting a cap on myself if this company is taking a risk? Then, you know, it’s high risk, I mean, high reward.’”
Spence had a different take.
“All money not good money,” stated the unbeaten southpaw from Desoto, Texas. “I asked him where the 50 mill coming from who is over the hedge fund/ putting the money up he couldn’t tell me.
“I think we all need to just meet in person.”
Crawford also made claims that Spence wasn’t directly involved in talks, that it was just himself—as a managerial and promotional free agent—and Haymon in contact with one another. The three-division and reigning WBO welterweight titlist also stressed the need for full transparency, since his stated offer was entirely incentive-driven in lieu of a base guarantee.
““A smart boss surrounds himself with the people who are the best at what they do and can help in my decisions,” noted Spence. “He claims that his concerns over having transparency on the revenues and expenses for the fight was the big issue that killed the negotiations. That’s cap. My side agreed to show him everything. The draft included specific provisions that required that both of us would receive “a complete and full” “written detailed accounting” showing all “pay-per-view sales of the Event and the then status of all Net Revenues received and all Event Expenses incurred and paid. If I’m not telling the truth, tell him post the draft.
“He talking about he didn’t have a guarantee & he was taking all the risk. [Motherf—–], I didn’t have a guarantee just a higher percentage. He said I wasn’t at the table or [no]where to be found. For what I knew what I was projected to get & happy with it to be honest that hedge fund deal was for your benefit lol.”
“I think we all need to just meet in person.”
An announcement regarding Spence’s next opponent is expected in the coming weeks.
Former unified welterweight titlist Keith Thurman (30-1, 22KOs) and secondary WBA titleholder Eimantas Stanionis (14-0, 9KOs) are the two leading candidates to land the assignment, should Spence stick around at welterweight. Stanionis’ team is already pushing for the WBA to order the title consolidation bout, while the WBC is expected to order Spence-Thurman as a mandatory title fight during its upcoming annual convention November 6-11 in Acapulco.
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox