Inside Terence Crawford and Errol Spence's secret calls to organise super-fight
Terence Crawford has explained how he made personal and private phone calls directly to Errol Spence Jr in order to push the pair's undisputed title fight over the line.
The welterweight duo will go to battle in the early hours of tomorrow morning, with not only all four 147lb belts on the line but also the pound-for-pound No.1 spot in the sport. However, there were times when both men feared the fight wouldn't happen due to months of failed negotiations.
After watching other super-fights fail to be delivered at fighters' primes, if at all, Crawford decided to pick up the phone and speak directly with his rival in order to make the deal work. And within weeks, the pair had put pen to paper for a deal to fight tonight in the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
“I had to hit him up January 1," Crawford told Mirror Fighting ahead of tonight's fight. "I sent him a text talking to him about how we need to fight to make history and he was in agreement about us fighting. At that particular time, I reached out to [Spence’s advisor] Al Haymon and started back up the conversations with him.
“We got on the phone with Errol and started talking about, you know, the structure of the fight and the deal. That’s how the fight got made. It was never anything like [hostility or banter], it was all business and respect. If you have two grown men who are willing to set aside their pride, put the hype to the side, come together, both want the same thing, then yes they should get on the phone."
Errol Spence vs Terence Crawford negotiations indicated worrying trend in boxing
Crawford was concerned about the prospect of being one of boxing's countless 'what ifs' who achieved so much in a glittering career, but never answered the biggest question. He will get that chance tonight in Sin City when he faces his fellow unbeaten champion, with a win making him the first man in history to become undisputed at two different weights in the four-belt era.
"It means a lot given the history that's on the line," he continued. "But at the same time, there's a lot of fights in the history of boxing that didn't happen. So I wouldn't be the first and I wouldn't be the last where if the fight with Errol Spence Jr didn't happen that people would be talking about fights that didn't happen, it'd be just another fight on the list that didn't happen."
Errol Spence Jr and Terence Crawford will fight each other tonight in Las Vegas (Esther Lin/SHOWTIME)Who do you think wins between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!
And he was keen to avoid a trash-talking 'circus act' in the lead-up to the fight, adding: “You get a lot of people, you know, they put on a circus act and they start going about things the wrong way, being disrespectful and taking it to another level that it doesn't need to be taken to. Sometimes you can’t come back from that.
"Boxers are the ones in charge, once a fighter realises that then the advisors, the promoters, the managers they go to work. They've got to give the fighter what he wants, so you have two cases where Tank [Gervonta Davis] and Ryan [Garcia] wanted to fight each other and they made sure that fight happened that deal got done just like you have right now.
"Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr wanted to fight each other so we went to our people and we got the fight done. It all comes down to the fighters at the end of the day because we're the ones that have to fight the fight. Yeah, our handlers look out for our best interests and make sure that business-wise we're making the right business decisions at the right time.
"But as a fighter, it's up to us to say 'yes' or 'no'. There are a lot of fighters who can say 'No I don't want to fight this guy, I want to fight him, give me him'. If the opposing fighter is saying the same thing there's nothing anyone can do but to make the fight happen."
TNT Sports Box Office will show Errol Spence Jr. v Terence Crawford exclusively live on Saturday July 29. Learn more at https://www.tntsports.co.uk/boxoffice
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