Before the formal announcement of Errol Spence Jr.–Terence Crawford, before thousands of super fight-starved boxing fans descended on Sin City, before the bells and whistles that come with a major fight week, before the two best 147-pound fighters in the world squared off for welterweight—and perhaps pound-for-pound—supremacy, few believed it would happen. Negotiations were getting too sticky. Spence was getting too big. Crawford was more likely ticketed for another ho-hum title defense. Spence was preparing to drop his belts and move up to 154 pounds.
Who didn’t believe it: Spence. Despite an appealing matchup against longtime rival Keith Thurman waiting for him at junior middleweight, Spence was hell-bent on remaining at 147 pounds until a deal for the Crawford fight could be completed.
“I wasn’t close at all to giving up at all,” says Spence. “Even my handlers was telling me to either move up or move on. It’s too hard of negotiation. But I stuck to the negotiation. I said, ‘No, we can make this fight happen.’ Eventually it happened. It definitely took a while, but it happened now, and I feel like this fight is the biggest fight, not only in a decade but probably the last 20 years.”
