The Stakes Couldn’t Be Higher For Errol Spence
When Errol Spence Jr walks through the ropes Saturday night in downtown Los Angeles as the chosen one. Very few fighters enter the professional ranks with a prophecy about their future stardom, but most guys aren’t Spence. Most guys have to earn it the hard way as they blaze their trail through the usual suspects of beatable opponents on their rise. Spence does not fall into that category and with the weight of the boxing world on his shoulders, the stakes could not be higher.
As a young prospect coming out of the Olympics, the talk about Spence was that he was in a no-win situation at the Summer Games. He was a ready made pro fighter who overachieved as an amateur with a style that had no business having success in headgear. The prospect of him turning pro was exciting. A young southpaw who would ultimately land and campaign in boxing’s glamour division with incredible talent and power that could hit the ground running with the style he naturally employed. The list of fighters who have turned pro with this kind of fanfare is very short.
We are now seven years removed from that summer of disappointment for Spence. We’re past the rumors of Spence being removed from Floyd Mayweather’s camp, past the rumor of Spence knocking Adrien Broner out cold in a sparring session, and past the talk of welterweight champions like Timothy Bradley and Kell Brook rejecting fights with Spence. Spence is a full-fledged welterweight champion with 2 pay-per-views under his belt (Brook in the UK, Mikey Garcia in the US) and with the latest marketing push from FOX Sports, he’s emerging as one of the biggest stars in the sport of boxing.
While the prophecy said Spence was destined for the kind of once in a generation stardom and success in the sport of boxing, there is still a major risk that Spence will not reach his destiny. Shawn Porter stands in his path and if there is anything we know about Shawn Porter, it’s that nothing is easy involving Porter. Ask Kell Brook about how easy his fight was with Porter. While Brook took a clear decision win against Porter, Brook looked like he’d fought 20 rounds after the fight and Keith Thurman visibly went through hell in a fight of the year with Porter who was unrelenting for 12 rounds.
Spence may be a big favorite, but just winning isn’t enough for him. Porter has the skill-set, the physicality, and the experience to dull the shine of Spence. No fighter has ever walked away from a Porter fight and seen their stock skyrocket. Win or lose, Porter knows how to take you down with him if he’s going to lose. This fate would be worse than losing for Spence.
Errol Spence currently sits in a position in the sport of boxing that only two other fighters can say they thoroughly enjoy. The others being Canelo Alvarez who fights whoever he damn well pleases despite what the media executives and promoters say and Deontay Wilder who has options galore and the agency to do what he pleases.
For Spence, millions and millions of dollars are on the line every time he steps in the ring. Should he look explosive against Shawn Porter, the wheels start to turn about what comes next and there are two juicy options that serve different purposes.
Of course, those two options would be the living legend Manny Pacquiao, who holds one piece of the welterweight crown, and Terence Crawford who holds the other piece that isn’t controlled by the PBC stable of welterweights. Both fights are guaranteed pay-per-views that would be a bonanza at the gate in Las Vegas.
If Spence continues on this trajectory and takes an interim fight before he meets with one of them, it only serves to increase demand for the eventual meetings with the other two titleholders at welterweight. While fans may bicker about the process of delaying a fight, one simply has to look at numbers to know that while the social media cry may seem to represent all fans, the reality is they make up a tiny subset of fans who make no difference when the money is counted in the end. Think of how many people complained that Mayweather-Pacquiao happened too late. It still broke every record in the book.
The other aspect is that Spence is being placed in a position to be the ambassador for boxing. He has the widest platform in FOX putting him front and center for the world to see. Ancillary programming to promote the fight is airing all across FOX networks introducing Spence to audiences boxing has not reached in decades in hopes of converting some new fans. This benefits the entire sport, not just Spence and those who benefit from him.
But what Spence must first do for everyone to eat is he must fulfill the prophecy. Shawn Porter is as tough as they come and has built a career of being competitive in every single fight he’s ever been in. Spence must show he is the class of the division on Saturday. Spence must enter the Floyd Mayweather and Andre Ward stratosphere of dominance where the only opposition you can imagine for him resides in divisions he does not currently compete in.
If Spence can do that, he can also begin to rewrite the narrative of how a star fighter is supposed to behave when they are the top draw in the sport. For years there has been an expectation that one has to be Floyd Mayweather to earn like Floyd Mayweather. Spence is never going to be that and that’s okay.
