Max Kellerman believes that the Errol Spence Jr vs. Terence Crawford fight isn’t creating the kind of interest for their July 29th fight it would have been years ago when the two fighters were hugely popular, and fans were eager to see them battle it out.
It’s possible that by letting the Spence-Crawford over-marinate, they hurt the interest that was once there for the fight.
Kellerman notes that what worked for Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao in letting their fight marinate a little too long hasn’t worked similarly for the Spence vs. Crawford fight.
It’s fairly obvious why the Mayweather-Pacquiao generated so much interest while Spence & Crawford aren’t.
Mayweather & Pacquiao were active with their careers, fighting twice a year leading up to their mega-bout in 2015. They fought quality opposition like Tim Bradley, Juan Manuel Marquez, and Marcos Maidana.
In contrast, Crawford (39-0, 30 KOs) and Spence (28-0, 22 KOs) have mainly fought once a year since 2020 and only against lesser opposition.
When you’re only fighting annually against lesser fighters, your popularity will drop off, and that’s what we’ve seen with Crawford & Spence.
Crawford’s resume since 2020
- David Avanesyan
- Shawn Porter
- Kell Brook
Spence’s resume since 2020
- Yordenis Ugas
- Danny Garcia
How Spence & Crawford have sabotaged their careers
1. Not being active enough.
2. Fighting weak opposition.
3. Poor marketing of their fights
Kellerman: “Spence has beaten more good welterweights than Crawford. When I look at Crawford, he cleaned out the lightweight division and was the champion of that division the way you were at junior welterweight. he did the same thing at junior welter,” said Kellerman on Max on Boxing.
“If he beats Spence, he’ll be one of the very few true three-division champions in boxing. There was Henry Armstrong once upon a time. Duran didn’t do it, Sugar Ray Leonard didn’t do it, Tommy Hearns didn’t do it. Not as the man, the actual champion.
“Pacquiao did it, Mayweather did it, very few have. He would join their ranks all right. This is my favorite sporting event you could make, Crawford-Spence in the world right now in any sport. But it feels to me like it was a little hotter a couple of years ago.
“It’s the opposite of Mayweather-Pacquiao where the longer they waited, even if the fight itself wasn’t as good as it could have been once upon a time, there was all this pent-up demand. So the event just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
“That did not seem to happen, at least so far. For me, my observation has been, and my sense of things is, it’s not as hot a fight; it’s not what everyone’s talking about in the sports world now, only about a month out as it may have been two years ago.
“Are you getting that sense in terms of the event, not the fight? Do you think they waited too long?”
Bradley: “I don’t know, Max. I could just tell you this. I’m on YouTube quite a bit, and I’m looking at the traffic, I’m looking at the traffic towards the viewership, towards these promotions, and they’re not millions of people following this or clicking on this fight.
“So that worries me, and I think you’re right. You have a point, but I could just tell you this. I know the week of or the day right before the fight when the push comes, the big push to promote this fight; I think everybody’s going to gravitate toward this matchup, I really do.
“We’re going to find out who’s the best welterweight in the world is and possibly the number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world.”
Kellerman: It’s going to be the number one pound for pound.”
https://youtu.be/NRVJsu2tXs0?t=579