Errol Spence Jr and Terence Crawford are once again held up in negotiations, ESPN.com’s Mike Coppinger reports, and with the delay in actually finalizing the deal, it is no longer being targeted to take place on Nov. 19.
It’s not all terrible news, though, since the basic terms are still agreed, and they are supposedly now looking at December or January for the fight.
December, of course, is tricky because you really only have the first three weekends — Saturdays on the 3rd, 10th, and 17th — open for a fight of this magnitude due to Christmas Eve (Dec. 24) and New Year’s Eve (Dec. 31) taking up the last two, which are generally no-gos for any notable American boxing, anyway, let alone a fight like this.
Coppinger says that the issue now is that “Crawford wants transparency related to event expenses,” as his contract does not guarantee him a purse.
Saying it’s not all terrible news is not meant to say this isn’t bad news, though; any delay or issue runs a risk of being the one that breaks negotiations off, and this is the fight everyone has wanted for years now, with it being actually realistic to make at this point because Crawford is no longer under Top Rank contract.
Spence (28-0, 22 KO) holds the WBC, WBA, and IBF welterweight titles, adding the WBA belt to his collection in his last fight on Apr. 16, a win over Yordenis Ugas. Crawford (38-0, 29 KO) has the WBO belt, and hasn’t fought since his Nov. 2021 win over Shawn Porter.