On July 29, boxing fans will finally get the fight they’ve been waiting to see when Errol Spence Jr. clashes with Terence Crawford for undisputed welterweight glory in Las Vegas.
While the bout is just over a week away at this point, booking the mega fight was anything but easy.
In a recent interview with “The Pivot Podcast,” Spence revealed one of the causes for the delay and stalled negotiations towards making the fight happen — the battle over who would be the A-side.
Both Spence (28-0, 22 KOs) and Crawford (39-0, 30 KOs) are undefeated, though the former holds the WBC, WBA and IBF welterweight world titles to Crawford’s lone WBO championship.
“There got to be an A-side and that’s why we were going … that’s why the business side was kind of …,” Spence began trying to explain.
“Cause with [Crawford], he just didn’t want to believe that I’m the big dog when we talk about ticket sales, when we talk about putting butts in the seats, all that,” he continued.
“[Crawford] didn’t want to believe that. He was like ‘well, I did this, I won these belts, I did this.’ That’s cool but try to take that to the bank.”
Cooler heads prevailed when the fighters spoke about the fight once again and came to the conclusion that the fight has to happen, thus settling on Spence being the A-side.
“I feel like he’s my dancing partner and I’m his dancing partner,” Spence said.
“We’re meant for each other so we got to make it happen.
“It’s one of these legendary fights. This is like Sugar Ray not fighting Tommy Hearns or Tommy Hearns not fighting Marvin Hagler. It’s something basically for me that I feel like had to happen.”