Notebook: Besides undisputed title, legacies on line in Spence-Crawford
Haney deadline extended with Prograis fight in the works; former WBC champion Meza dies; BetUS show; ongoing WBA strawweight saga; Pacquiao exhibition announced; Quick hits; Show and tell
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TGB Promotions’ Tom Brown, the promoter or co-promoter for all Premier Boxing Champions events, is a matchmaker and a behind-the-scenes guy at heart.
While most promoters love the spotlight and to talk and talk. And talk. And talk, that is not Brown. He is generally a man or few words, but even he is excited for one of the most significant and anticipated fights his company and PBC have been involved in — the long-awaited showdown between Errol Spence Jr. and Terence Crawford.
They will meet to unify the four major belts to produce the first-ever undisputed welterweight champion of the four-belt era as well as probable pound-for-pound No. 1 status for the winner on July 29 (Showtime PPV and PPV.com, 8 p.m. ET, $84.99) at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
“This fight is really as big as it gets,” Brown said. “We have the best two fighters in the world, unbeaten and in their prime. We haven’t seen fighters with skills like this since Sugar Ray Leonard and Tommy Hearns.”
Indeed, Leonard and Hearns, icons of the sport, met for the first of their two huge fights in what was hailed as the 1981 fight of the year at the famed outdoor arena at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, where Leonard knocked out Hearns in the 14th round of one of the biggest and best fights in boxing history to become the undisputed welterweight champion.
“This is not just a mega fight, it’s bigger than that,” Brown said. “It’s a generational fight. It's an instant classic that you’ll remember for years to come. Legacies will be determined.”
The fighters also view it as a legacy fight, one they have both wanted for years — and one that took years to finally make.
Spence and Crawford are already both probable Hall of Famers but their fight will likely be the defining bout of their careers and they wouldn’t have it any other way.
“This is definitely a legacy fight and a fight that should be talked about everywhere,” Crawford said. “This is an old school type of fight. All the greats have fought each other and that’s what we’re doing for this era.”
Crawford (39-0, 30 KOs), 35, of Omaha, Nebraska, has won world titles in three divisions — lightweight, undisputed at junior welterweight and now he is the WBO welterweight champion. A win over Spence, who has the WBC, IBF and WBA 147-pound belts, can make more history for Crawford as he would become the first male boxer to be undisputed in two weight classes in the four-belt era.
The magnitude of the bout is not lost on Spence either.
“This is the biggest fight in boxing right now,” Spence said. “This is a legendary fight. It’s an old-school fight. This is like the fights my dad used to tell me about. It’s the best fighting the best.
“For us, we just gotta make sure that how exciting it is on paper, we gotta make it exciting off paper and when we get in the ring. We gotta make sure that people are gonna remember this fight and people are gonna talk about it how they talk about Ray Leonard and Tommy Hearns, and all the great fights 40 years ago. I want somebody, my kid or somebody else’s kid, 20, 30 years from now, to watch it on YouTube.”
Spence (28-0, 22 KOs), 33, a southpaw from DeSoto, Texas, hopes the fight also makes an impression on the next generation of boxers.
“They’re amateurs, they’re watching our fight like, ‘Man, one day, I want to be in a fight like that.’ And they have documentaries about me and Terence Crawford and how it occurred and, you know, how the fight happened and what happened before the fight. So, you know, it’s a great moment in history. It’s a great moment just for boxing and myself.”
I’ll be covering the Spence-Crawford mega fight in Las Vegas next week. Upgrade to a paid subscription and make sure you don’t miss any posts.
Listen to the new podcast, including my questions for Spence and Crawford
Haney deadline extended
The WBC granted an extension of the Friday deadline it set for undisputed lightweight champion Devin Haney to let the organization know whether he planned to remain at lightweight and make a mandatory defense against Shakur Stevenson or move up to junior welterweight, where WBC titleholder Regis Prograis would be ordered to make a mandatory defense against Haney.
According to WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman, Haney and Prograis petitioned the organization to extend the deadline and that WBC Board of Governors voted to extend it until Thursday.
The reason is because Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn, who promotes Prograis, is trying to finalize a deal with Haney and Prograis for the bout.
If the deal is made, Haney (30-0, 15 KOs), who is a promotional and broadcast free agent, would return to his former promoter Hearn, with whom he has a good relationship, and challenge Prograis on DAZN in the second fight of Prograis’ three-fight contract with Matchroom Boxing. It would also mean Haney would move up in weight and that the lightweight titles would likely become vacant.
Prograis (29-1, 24 KOs) made the first defense of his second title reign in his first fight of the deal with Matchroom Boxing on June 17 and won a split decision in a desultory fight against Danielito Zorrilla. Haney defended the undisputed lightweight title by unanimous decision over former unified champion Vasiliy Lomachenko on May 20, after which his co-promotional deal with Top Rank and Lou DiBella expired.
Prograis wants the fight with Haney, posting to social media earlier in the week, “Either Devin can stay there (at lightweight) and get outboxed by Shakur or come up to fight me and get his teeth knocked out. Stuck between a rock and a hard place.”
If the deal for a fight with Prograis isn’t made, Haney has plenty of other options, which would include making his WBC lightweight mandatory against Stevenson or pursuing a fight with WBO/lineal junior welterweight champion Teofimo Lopez, who he has exchanged harsh words with on social media. Stevenson and Lopez are both promoted by Top Rank, which has shown interest in retaining Haney.
Juan ‘Kid’ Meza dies
Former WBC junior featherweight champion Juan “Kid” Meza died on Thursday. He was 66. The WBC announced his passing though no cause of death was given.
Meza (45-9, 37 KOs), of Mexicali, Mexico, had numerous fights at the Silver Slipper in Las Vegas and the famed Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles during his 1977 to 1987 career, though he returned for two more fights in 1997.
His first shot at a world title was when he challenged Hall of Famer Wilfredo Gomez for the WBC 122-pound belt in March 1982 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, but Gomez stopped him in the sixth round.
Meza won his next four fights, which set him up to challenge new WBC junior featherweight titlist Jaime Garza, who was 40-0. They exchanged knockdowns but Meza knocked him out in the first round to win the title in November 1984 in Kingston, New York.
Meza made one successful defense against Mike Ayala, knocking him out in the sixth round in April 1985 in Inglewood, California, before getting knocked down twice and losing the title by unanimous decision to Hall of Famer Lupe Pintor in Mexico City in August 1985.
In his next fight, Meza got his final opportunity to fight for a world title, once again boxing for the WBC belt, this time held by unbeaten Samart Payakaroon, who stopped him in the 12th round.
BetUS Boxing Show
If you missed the BetUS Boxing Show live at 1 p.m. ET on Friday on YouTube, please check out the replay (and also subscribe to the YouTube channel). We previewed and handicapped three fights, the George Kambosos Jr.-Maxi Hughes lightweight eliminator that headlines the Top Rank/ESPN card on Saturday night and the two world title fights that will take place Tuesday in Tokyo and will stream in the early morning on ESPN+: Stephen Fulton’s unified junior featherweight title defense against Naoya Inoue and Robeisy Ramirez’s WBO featherweight title defense against Satoshi Shimizu. We also took viewer questions and comments and discussed the latest boxing news! Please check out the show here:
WBA strawweight soap opera
The saga of the long overdue and delayed WBA strawweight title fight between “super” titlist Thammanoon Niyomtrong (24-0, 9 KOs), 32, of Thailand, who is also known as Knockout CP Freshmart, and “regular” titlist Erick Rosa (5-0, 1 KO), 23, of the Dominican Republic, took a step in the right direction on Friday.
Shuan Boxing, Rosa’s promoter, won a purse bid via Zoom for $80,000 as the only bidder. Panya Prachakorn of Niyomtrong promoter Diamond Promotions did not bid.
The split is 75-25 in Niyomtrong’s favor. He’ll get $60,000 and Rosa $20,000, miniscule purses for all of the aggravation that there has been trying to get the fight on.
Signed contracts are due back to the WBA by Aug. 10 with no extensions on the deadline permitted. However, both fighters, who have had lengthy layoffs, are allowed one interim nontitle bout that must take place no later than Aug. 21 with no extensions allowed.
The fight is part of the WBA’s pledge to rid itself of multiple world titles in the same division and this one should have already happened. Because the fight has already gone to a previous purse bid won by Diamond Promotions, only to have the bout fall through, there are more stringent rules in place to help assure it happens this time.
Among the conditions: the fight has to take place in a neutral country “due to the inconveniences that have delayed the fight in previous occasions” and the fight must take place on or before Oct. 19.
On its bidding form, Shuan Boxing listed three potential dates and sites for the fight: Oct. 7 in Las Vegas, Oct. 14 in Minnesota and Oct. 19 in Haiti. If the fight is in the U.S. it would be done in conjunction with PBC, according to the WBA.
They were scheduled to fight March 1 in Thailand after Diamond Promotions won a purse bid. But the fight was canceled when Rosa was detained upon his arrival because he lacked the proper visa. Another purse bid was scheduled but a deal was made beforehand for TGB Promotions to put the fight on a July 15 PBC card, but that deal fell apart, causing Friday’s purse bid to take place.
Quick hits
Weights from Shawnee, Oklahoma, for Saturday’s Top Rank/ESPN card: George Kambosos Jr. 134.6 pounds, Maxi Hughes 134.7 (IBF lightweight eliminator); Keyshawn Davis 134.3, Francesco Patera 134; Giovani Santillan 147.8, Erick Bone 147.6; Jeremiah Milton 255.3, Willie Harvey 296.5; Troy Isley 158.8, Antonio Todd 159.2; Amron Sands 300, Hemi Ahio 247; Stephan Shaw 244, Joe Goodall 238.
Manny Pacquiao, 44, the eight-division champion, may still unretire for an official fight but in the meantime he will face retired Muay Thai and kickboxing star Buakaw Banchamek, 41, in a six-round junior middleweight boxing exhibition in Thailand on a date to be announced in the first quarter of 2024. The two met face to face at a news conference announcing the event on Friday at Siam Park in Bangkok. Pacquiao has twice previously boxed in Thailand, winning his first world title (at flyweight) there in 1998 and losing it there in 1999.
PBC and TGB Promotions announced the non-televised/streamed fights for the Errol Spence Jr.-Terence Crawford card July 29 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Besides the four-fight Showtime PPV and two bouts the network will stream on its social media, there are four more bouts: lightweights Jabin Chollet (7-0, 6 KOs) and Michael Portales (3-1-1, 1 KO) in a six-rounder; junior lightweight Justin Viloria (2-0, 2 KO) against Pedro Borgaro (4-0, 2 KOs) in a six; lightweight Demler Zamora (11-0, 9 KOs) versus Nikolai Buzolin (9-4-1, 5 KOs) over eight; and welterweight Kevin Ventura (11-0, 8 KOs), a Crawford training partner, against DeShawn Prather (15-1, 2 KOs) in a six.
Junior featherweight Erik Robles (14-1, 9 KOs), 23, of Mexico, upset Lee McGregor (12-1-1, 9 KOs), 26, on Friday, winning a unanimous decision in the main event of the Wasserman Boxing card, which streamed on DAZN in the U.S., at Meadowbank Sports Centre in McGregor’s hometown of Edinburgh, Scotland. Robles won 116-113, 115-113 and 115-113 in the action fight.
Show and tell
While the big one is next week as Terence Crawford meets Errol Spence Jr. in the most significant fight of the year in a unification fight to determine the undisputed welterweight champion, let’s take a look back at Crawford’s first unification fight. After he won the vacant WBO junior welterweight title by knocking out Thomas Dulorme, Crawford made two defenses before he was matched with fellow unbeaten Viktor Postol, who had won the WBC title by 10th-round knockout in an excellent performance against Lucas Matthysse and was making his first defense. They met to unify their 140-pound titles (and also for the vacant Ring magazine title) in the main event of an HBO PPV card put on by Top Rank at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in a fight I was ringside to cover.
It was viewed as a dangerous fight for Crawford ahead of time but he rolled through Postol with ease. Crawford knocked him down twice in the fifth round en route to a one-sided decision, 118-107, 118-107 and 117-108, before eventually unifying all four belts to become the undisputed 140-pound king. Crawford-Postol was on July 23, 2016 — seven years ago on Sunday. Here is a glossy site poster in my collection.
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Photos: Spence-Crawford group: Esther Lin/Showtime; Haney and Kambosos-Hughes: Mikey Williams/Top Rank
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For Haney to not rematch Loma is just sad. People compare him to Mayweather and ANYTIME Mayweather had a fight where public thought he lost he always rematched them and put it to bed. Regardless of what Fight freaks think, 78% of public through multiple, multiple social media polls had Loma winning the fight. I keep going back to the Live odds of the fight and how Loma who started as a 2/1 underdog was a 5/1 favorite going into Rd.12. That means short of knockout/ multiple knockdowns, they had him winning fight comfortably!!