The megawatt smile plastered on Shawn Porter's face said it all.
The former welterweight world champion took to his The Porter Way Podcast recently to offer up his reaction to the WBO mandating last week that Terence Crawford defends his WBO title against Porter and that their two camps must come to an agreement by Aug. 20 or the fight will go to purse bids.
"That's mindblowing, right?" Porter first said on his podcast, describing how he initially reacted to the news.
"We can't say too much about the fight, but we are going to say we are happy to see the announcement," he continued. "We, being myself and my dad, are surprised by the announcement. We're really just kind of in that space where 'Wow, didn't see this coming.' This is a pleasant surprise.
"At this point, it's just a matter of time (before an agreement is made and the fight has an official date)."
With Porter fighting under the PBC umbrella and Crawford with Top Rank, and considering the frigid relationship between the two promotions, just having the WBO order in place is significant.
For the 33-year-old Porter (31-3-1, 17 KOs) the opportunity to hand Crawford (37-0, 28 KOs) his first loss and take his title in the process is massive. Porter outpointed Danny Garcia by unanimous decision to claim the WBC world welterweight title in September 2018, before defending the championship against Yordenis Ugás in March 2019. In September of the same year, he clashed with Errol Spence Jr. in a hard-fought unification bout that had the latter emerge with the IBF and WBC titles in tow following a split-decision victory.
Although Porter did get back into the win column via a unanimous decision victory over Sebastian Formella in August, a title fight against Crawford, who many critics believe is boxing's pound-for-pound best, puts "Showtime" right in the spot he wants to be in.
"More than anything, I'm grateful to see something like that happen," Porter continued about the WBO's mandate for Crawford.
"This situation right here will kind of bring it all in," he added about a possible culmination of his career. "I don't think that I could get a bigger crowd than this. I don't think the world could be any more excited about something I'm doing in boxing more than they are about this.
"Everybody is excited about me and Terence."
Back in February, when asked by DAZN's Ak & Barak about a legacy fight, Porter specifically mentioned Crawford.
Back then he reasoned that he could decide who's better between Spence and Crawford, as he already gave the former a rugged run and that a win over the latter could solidify his own greatness.