Notebook: Spence speaks out on delayed return, Crawford talks
Taylor-Catterall II gets a new date; Matchroom Boxing card in New York in works; Quick hits; Show and tell
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Unified welterweight titlist Errol Spence Jr.’s expected return in the first quarter of 2023 will be delayed.
Although Spence was not seriously injured in a Dec. 10 car accident in which a 14-year-old took his parents’ car out for a joy ride and smashed into Spence’s vehicle, he was banged up enough that it has caused his next fight to be pushed back.
Spence, who was lucky to survive a drunken late-night one-car crash in October 2019, said during an interview on Showtime’s Frank Martin-Michel Rivera broadcast on Saturday night in Las Vegas — Spence is Martin’s promoter — that he would need time off due to aches and pains from the Dallas-area accident before he could resume training.
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“Can’t win for losing,” Spence said during the interview with Showtime’s Brian Custer. “But, I mean, I’m doing great, man. You know, (it’s) very unfortunate that a 14-year-old kid, you know, steal his parents’ car and then, out of all people that’s on the road, he run into me. So, it’s very unfortunate. But I survived and I’m doing all right, man. A couple bruises and things like that.”
Spence has not boxed since a dominating 10th-round knockout of Yordenis Ugas to unify three titles in April. That fight followed a 16-month layoff due to surgery to repair a detached retina. He had hoped to fight either late this year or by February at the latest against Terence Crawford in an undisputed title fight but those negotiations fell apart.
Crawford knocked out David Avanesyan in the sixth round to retain the WBO title on Dec. 10 in a hometown fight in Omaha, Nebraska, and Spence (28-0, 22 KOs), 32, of Desoto, Texas, planned to return in a WBC mandatory defense against former unified titlist Keith Thurman in March. But the fight was never announced because of the car accident. Now it will be delayed.
“I was gonna have a fight announcement probably like three, four days after my accident,” Spence said. “But stuff started hurting, things like that, so we kinda pushed it back and (we will) wait on an announcement.”
Asked to pin down when he would return, Spence offered a three-month window.
“Probably like around May or June — April, May or June. I’ve just gotta talk to my team. Hopefully, I’ll recover 100 percent. I’m sure I’ll recover a 100 percent because I’ve been in worse accidents. I’ve been in worse accidents,” Spence said with a laugh.”
Spence also addressed the failure of the talks for the fight with Crawford, a match boxing fans have wanted for the past few years. Crawford (39-0, 30 KOs), 35, has said he did as much as he could to make a deal and blamed Spence’s camp for it falling apart.
“Man, if he did everything that he could to make the fight happen, the fight woulda happened, man. You know what I’m saying? But unfortunately, it didn’t,” Spence said. “He went about it the wrong way. If he woulda just been on the up-and-up and been like, ‘Hey, I’ve been talking to these guys (from BLK Prime). I’m fighting this guy (Avanesyan) for $10 million. It’s an easy fight. I’m gonna make this money right quick and I’ll be right back,’ we probably let him do it.
“I’m not hatin’. Get your money, man. But, you know, the way he went about it, and then trying to blame my side for messing up the negotiations, I feel like that wasn’t right at all. But hopefully I can spin that block again and we go to negotiations and try to fight because it’s a fight I really want. So, hopefully we can make it happen next year.”
Taylor-Catterall II gets date
The rematch between WBO junior welterweight champion Josh Taylor and Jack Catterall, which was initially penciled for Feb. 4 at the OVO Hydro in Glasgow, Scotland, the site of their first bout, will now take place there on March 4, sources with knowledge of the schedule told Fight Freaks Unite on Thursday.
Top Rank has not yet officially announced the bout, but it will air on ESPN+ in the United States and headline a Sky Sports Box Office pay-per-view in the United Kingdom.
The fight was moved to March because Sky Sports did not want two pay-per-views so close together. It is putting on the Chris Eubank Jr.-Liam Smith middleweight fight on PPV on Jan. 21.
Taylor (19-0, 13 KOs), 31, of Scotland, won a very controversial decision over Catterall (26-1, 13 KOs), 29, a southpaw from England, in defense of the undisputed 140-pound title in February.
Stung by intense criticism, Taylor opted to pursue a rematch with Catterall rather than make mandatory defenses. That resulted in Taylor vacating or being stripped of the other three belts. Neither man has boxed since their first fight.
Quick hits
Although junior welterweight star Ryan Garcia decided against having a tune-up fight against Mercito Gesta on Jan. 28 ahead of a pay-per-view showdown with Gervonta Davis penciled in for April 15, Golden Boy still hopes to put on a card that night and is trying to work out the details with DAZN. If they go forward with the event, welterweight Alexis Rocha (21-1, 13 KOs), 25, of Santa Ana, California, would headline, a source with knowledge of the discussions told Fight Freaks Unite.
Matchroom Boxing is planning a DAZN card on Feb. 4 at the Hulu Theater in New York to be headlined by three-belt unified women’s featherweight champion Amanda Serrano (43-2-1, 30 KOs), 34, a Puerto Rican fighting out of Brooklyn. It would be Serrano’s second fight since a razor-close split decision loss to undisputed women’s lightweight champion Katie Taylor in the Madison Square Garden main arena in April in an instant-classic battle. If Serrano wins in February it could pave the way for a rematch with Taylor that would be the biggest fight in women’s boxing. Others penciled in for the Feb. 4 card are Brooklyn welterweight prospect Richardson Hitchins (15-0, 7 KOs) in his second fight since signing with Matchroom Boxing and Staten Island junior welterweight Reshat Mati (13-0, 7 KOs), who would face popular Long Island brawler Cletus Seldin (26-1, 22 KOs). Three-belt unified women’s junior titlist Alycia Baumgardner (13-1, 7 KOs), coming her unification win over Mikael Mayer in October, also could appear.
Heavyweight Efe Ajagba (16-1, 13 KOs), 28, a 2016 Nigerian Olympian based in Houston, likely will face Stephan Shaw (18-0, 13 KOs), 30, of St. Louis, in the 10-round main event of the 2023 debut of Top Rank Boxing on ESPN on Jan. 14 at Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona, New York, a source with knowledge of the talks told Fight Freaks Unite on Thursday. Ajagba was scheduled to face Oscar Rivas (28-1, 19 KOs), but he withdrew on Wednesday due to an eye injury. Shaw is coming off an eight-round shutout decision against Rydell Booker on Nov. 22.
Show and tell
Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez, the former pound-for-pound king and a four-division champion, and Juan Francisco Estrada, who has won titles in two divisions, are both future Hall of Famers. They have earned that legacy in large measure because of their great trilogy that produced three action-packed fights for high stakes. They’re both pound-for-pound level fighters and have been among the best smaller weight fighters of this century.
They first met in 2012 in Los Angeles for Gonzalez’s junior flyweight title and Gonzalez won a competitive but clear decision in a sensational battle. A rematch was talked about for years but did not happen until March 2021 when they met in Dallas to unify junior bantamweight titles. It was, for my money, the best fight of the trilogy and would have been the fight of the year had it not been for Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder III, which will go down as one of the best heavyweight championship fights ever. Estrada evened the series with a highly controversial split decision over Gonzalez, who I felt absolutely won.
After two postponements (because each man had come down with Covid-19), the rubber match took place on Dec. 3 in Glendale, Arizona, and it was another terrific fight. Estrada opened a big lead before Gonzalez closed with a flourish. In the end, Estrada won a majority decision (I and many others had it a draw) to retain the lineal junior bantamweight and win the vacant WBC belt he had previously vacated. It’s a fabulous trilogy and both fighters have said they are open to a fourth fight. Unfortunately, I don’t have any memorabilia from either of the first two bouts in my collection, but I do from the third fight, including this mint full ticket.
Spence photo: Ryan Hafey/PBC; Taylor-Catterall photo: Mikey Williams/Top Rank
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Spence/Bud is never happening is it? I mean Bud kind of crossed Al Haymon with the dual stealth negotiations. And two, Al is never gonna change how he pays his guys money from PPV revenues just for Bud. It’s how Uncle Al makes his money. Subtract his fees and expenses (purposely murky), before anyone gets paid. I hope I’m wrong and the fight gets made.
Color me interested in that Feb. 4 Matchroom card. You can’t go wrong with the Hebrew Hammer on the bill.