Unbeaten southpaw Errol Spence Junior, who ripped the IBF welterweight crown from Kell Brook in Sheffield, England in May, is looking at making his maiden title defence in either December of January, likely in New York.
According to the man with all the news, Dan Rafael of ESPN.com, “The Truth” will fight in Long Island, New York if his next fight takes place in December, or at The Barclays Centre if it’s in January. As for who the challenger might be, there is nothing official yet but two names have been mentioned: Lamon Peterson and Luis Collazo.
With all due respect to both Peterson, 35-3-1(17) and Collazo, 37-7(20), neither guy will be picked by too many fight fans to win the fight with the extremely gifted Spence. Spence, 22-0(19) wants the big fights – one with fellow welterweight ruler Keith Thurman in particular – but he must bide his time and remain as active as he possibly can until these big unification fights come.
Peterson, who won a version of the WBA welterweight title with an impressive enough win over David Avenesyan back in February, is a good, solid fighter, but does he have the stuff needed to even trouble Spence? As for the teak-tough and even more seasoned Collazo (was it really May of 2006 when Collazo pushed Ricky Hatton so hard in that controversial title fight!), he is coming off a great KO win over Sammy Vasquez, also in February, but would Collazo, a southpaw like Spence, be in with a genuine chance of winning?
For what it’s worth, I’d rather see Spence defend his belt against either Amir Khan (no, Khan has done nothing to warrant a shot at a world title, but with his great speed he would perhaps give Spence plenty to think about in there; more than either Peterson or Collazo would), or Danny Garcia or even Andre Berto.
Spence, though, perhaps deserves something of an “easy” first title defence. The Texan is, after all, expected to reign for quite some time.