Welterweight contender Cody Crowley has serious doubts about whether Errol Spence Jr wants to fight at this career stage.
The IBF/WBA/WBC 147-lb champion Spence (28-0, 22 KOs) fights only annually and keeps getting involved in car crashes.
Spence isn’t fighting the best and appears that he’s just looking to milk his four titles without facing the real threats, Terence Crawford, Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis, Vergil Ortiz Jr, Eimantas Stanionis, and even the fading inactive former welterweight king Keith Thurman.
Some boxing fans feel that the welterweight division will be better off when Spence and Terence Crawford move up to 154, as neither of them has shown interest in fighting the best. Once they’re gone, old school lions like Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis and Vergil Ortiz Jr can take over and fight the best, including each other.
To say that Spence has been a poor champion is putting it lightly. Since capturing his first welterweight title in 2017, Spence has padded his record with fights against these soft touches: Yordenis Ugas, Mikey Garcia, Danny Garcia, Lamont Peterson, Carlos Ocampo, and Shawn Porter.
The fight against Porter came after he was softened up by Ugas first in what many boxing fans saw as a robbery.
“To be honest, I don’t know if he wants to fight,” said Cody Crowley to Thaboxingvoice about Errol Spence Jr, who fights only once a year and is coming off another car crash.
“We’re almost at what, a fight a year that we’re going on?” said Crowley about the 32-year-old Spence. “Then we spend four or five months discussing money when if money isn’t a problem, why not fight every single month?
“If you are ‘The Truth,’ why not keep fighting? But that’s not the fighter,” said Crowley when told that it’s ‘Money & politics’ that are holding up the fights.
“You’ve got people that is 44-years-old like Manny Pacquiao. What happens? They keep, ‘Line them up.’ Pacquiao is coming back. You have to fight the fight,” said Crowley when asked if he’ll be happy if Spence fights Pacquiao next rather than one of the top contenders, who have been waiting patiently for an opportunity.
“It’s better than not fighting, but what should happen is the next person in line in the ranking system should be going properly, moving efficiently. So it’s like a factory belt. The next person up, line them up, and knock them down.
“Right now, it’s not like that. It doesn’t matter if you’re #2. If it don’t make money, it don’t make sense. So that’s a false reality right there. We’re walking around with a lot of smoke & mirrors in the boxing game.
“You’ve got world champions, people who are making lots of money, and up-and-comers, who have all the shine & buzz, but they get knocked off super easy. They get opportunities where other people are working their a** off day in, day out don’t get an opportunity.
“It’s so much bull s**t. Boxing is due for a breath of fresh air. I think everybody in the community thinks that.
“Put it this way. My dad passed away in the summertime, and I got told to come right back here to get ready for a fight. I’ve been five months training with my own money thrown into the hole, spending twenty thousand dollars in training camp, and I don’t even know when I’m fighting.
“I built a whole entire house, I spent my blood, sweat & tears, and they say, ‘You know what? Change of plans. It doesn’t matter you built that whole house. You’re not getting paid for it. We’re going to move down the street, and I want you to build another one in two months.’
“That’s the sport of boxing right now. Does it make me lazy? I’d say it makes me more fed up with the people that care more about money than people’s careers. A lot of promoters don’t realize that it’s not just him. It’s his whole family that’s on standstill.
“It’s not just me. It’s my coach. My coach can’t go and do certain things. He can’t have holidays with his family and stuff like that because he’s sacrificing too, and it’s like a carrot being dangled in front of your face,” said Crowley.
