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How Errol Spence Jr.’s journey to PPV stardom started with a Floyd Mayweather Jr. sparring session

Fighters Network
27
Sep

LOS ANGELES — As indifferent as Errol Spence Jr. may seem to be at times, he’s keenly aware that he’s on the cusp of greatness.

And if everything goes according to plan when he steps into the ring with WBC welterweight champion Shawn Porter on Saturday, the 29-year-old IBF titlist will be recognized as one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world, and perhaps be on the road to something even bigger.

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“A knockout of Shawn Porter will get me closer to becoming the superstar that I am destined to be,” Spence told Sporting News. “To be honest, I’d be disappointed if I didn’t get the knockout.”



Inside of Tom’s Urban at LA Live, the sleepy-eyed Spence holds court with members of the media while his family is scattered throughout the establishment. One of his two daughters squeezes into his lap as he discusses arguably the biggest fight of his career. But like most things that happen to him, he adjusts to his daughter’s need for attention and continues talking like nothing happened.

“All of the time you have to make shifts,” he says as he passes his daughter off to his father. “Even if everything is going the way you want it to, you have to make slight adjustments to stay ahead of the game. It’s always a game of adjustments, and that’s what made Floyd Mayweather so great is that he’d make those adjustments on the fly.”

MORE: Spence vs. Porter fight info, how to watch

Mayweather is the name that made Spence an urban legend. Fresh off his 2012 Olympic run where he came home emptyhanded, Spence decided to turn pro and went 4-0 before being slated to face Brandon Hoskins on May 3, 2013. Around the same time, Mayweather was actively looking for sparring partners to help him prepare for his May 4 showdown with Robert Guerrero.

With their schedules lining up, Mayweather invited Spence to join his camp. But Mayweather found quickly that Spence wasn’t going to be another body he could lay to waste. On media day ahead of the Guerrero fight, Mayweather arrived sporting a nice shiner that he attempted to explain away. But legend has it that Spence was giving Mayweather hell inside of the ring and lumped up the undefeated pound-for-pound great.

Anybody else would wear the session like a badge of honor. But not Spence.

“I wasn’t thinking about how big it might be for my career,” Spence shrugs. “I was focused on preparing for my own fight. I was just learning from the best in the business. I wasn’t out to get any headlines. I don’t talk about what happens in sparring. I’m not a clout chaser. I really just didn’t care.”

But everyone else did. And by the time Spence made his Showtime television debut against Ronald Cruz in June of 2014, the boxing public wanted to see what the man who touched up Floyd Mayweather was all about.

Spence cruised to a unanimous decision to improve to 13-0 and spent the next couple of years pulverizing the competition. Phil Lo Greco, Chris Van Heerden, Samuel Vargas and Chris Algieri all fell to the growing legend of Errol Spence Jr. Kell Brook relinquished the IBF title to Spence and received a broken orbital bone for his troubles while Lamont Peterson was beaten into submission.

Fans clamored for a fight with then-undefeated Keith Thurman, but “One Time” was set on making Spence wait. Boxing’s boogeyman continued to be avoided until a one-sided throttling of Mikey Garcia made him the unavoidable.

With politics getting in the way of a Terence Crawford showdown and Manny Pacquiao seemingly uninterested in squaring off with Spence, Shawn Porter stepped up and put his WBC title on the line in what will certainly be the toughest test of Spence’s career.

MORE: Shawn Porter has hit ‘Showtime’ by being himself  

“Having two black fighters at the top of their game on PPV is a rare occasion,” Spence says of the fight that is rumored to be closing in on a sellout at Staples Center. “It kind of disrupts the narrative that black fighters don’t sell.”

Spence has himself to thank for that. He’s managed to use the momentum of the Mayweather sparring session six years ago and parlay that into a major attraction — even if he won’t admit it.

“This is my second fight on PPV,” he says. “I feel like I’m going in the right direction. Timing is everything.”

With a promise to put Porter on his back, Spence has laid out a plan to be the sport’s next big thing. And although the boxing world would love to see Spence and Crawford get it on for welterweight supremacy, the Texas native has his eyes set on a living legend.

“The Crawford fight will happen, but I want the Pacquiao fight before the Crawford fight,” he says. “Pacquiao is a legend who had two big wins this year in Keith Thurman and Adrien Broner. He has that WBA belt, and I want it.”

What Spence also wants is the Pacquiao rub. If he were to send Pacquiao into retirement, it would launch his boxing career into another stratosphere. But if there are concerns that Pacquiao will avoid him, Spence has a simple answer.

“Money talks. It always talks.”

When you’re on the cusp of greatness, some things are just too big to avoid, including Errol Spence Jr.

Story by Andreas Hale

 

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