The anticipation is building as one of the biggest fights of the year approaches, and on Tuesday Errol Spence Jr. and Terence Crawford were in the same room together to talk about their undisputed welterweight title bout scheduled for July 29.
Neither man lacks for confidence heading into the fight, nor should they — both fighters are undefeated and will bring with them world titles: Spence holds the WBA, WBC and IBF belts and Crawford the WBO strap.
As is usual for pre-fight press conferences, the men got into a bit of a verbal joust as they spoke about why they think they will win the July 29 fight. Tuesday's press conference was nothing out of the ordinary, but Spence used a seafood metaphor — playing on Crawford's name — when asked how he thinks things will proceed when the men step into the ring together in Las Vegas.
"This is the biggest fight, I feel like, in boxing right now," Spence said. "The best fighting the best, I feel like it's an old school fight, creme de la creme, and it's gonna prove not only the best welterweight in the world, it's gonna prove who the best fighter in the world is.
"If you know my mentality, you know it's to win and it's to go out and give it everything. His mentality is the same thing. So I want everybody tuning in July 29, come to the fight.
"We're gonna have a crawfish boil. So everybody make sure they there, man, it's gonna be enough for everybody, I promise you that."
Not to be outdone, Crawford continued the food theme and hit back at his opponent.
"I'mma gut him. I'mma feed him to everybody who eats fish in here," Crawford said before looking in Spence's direction. "You call yourself the big fish? We're gonna have enough food for everybody. We'll put some potatoes on the side of it, too."