Errol Spence Jr. vs. Keith Thurman Title Fight Ordered By WBC

Errol Spence Jr. will be fighting Keith Thurman, not Terence Crawford next time out.

The hope for many fans was to see the massive fight between Spence Jr. and Crawford and both men said it would happen. Yet, recently, Bob Arum came out and said he didn’t see how the fight would happen.

“Same problem,” Arum told FightHype.com. “It’s a big fight. It has a tremendous interest for people who follow boxing, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into revenue from pay-per-view, which is the biggest source, because of the piracy. The fighters realize how big a fight it is and they want to be paid big amounts of money and the promoter, in this case PBC, has to look at it and say you know, hey, we’ll put it on, we’ll give you nice guarantees, but you have to be willing to live with the upside, which the fighters realize now probably will not develop. Again, unless somebody wants to subsidize that fight I don’t know how it gets done.”

Now, with the fight not happening, the WBC has officially ordered Errol Spence Jr. to defend his title against Keith Thurman. The ruling was made Wednesday afternoon during the mandatories portion of the 60th annual WBC Convention in Acapulco, Mexico. The order was unanimously approved by the WBC Board of Governors, though the ruling itself could be a formality.  

Errol Spence Jr. (28-0) is coming off a TKO win over Yordenis Ugas in April to retain his WBC and IBF welterweight titles while also winning the WBA (Super) welterweight title. In his career, he also holds notable wins over Shawn Porter, Mikey Garcia, Danny Garcia, and Kell Brook.

Keith Thurman (30-1 and one No Contest) returned to the win column back in February as he beat Mario Barrios by decision. It was his first fight since July of 2019 when he dropped a split decision to Manny Pacquiao. He has notable wins over Danny Garcia and Shawn Porter.

Who do you think will win, Errol Spence Jr. or Keith Thurman?