What comes first for the pro athlete – Legacy or Brand?
Your brand can bring you millions of fans and endorsement dollars, but until you do something memorable, you are only a Brand.
Creating Legacy is what sears into the masses’ everlasting memory.
Which brings us to the unification welterweight championship fight on Saturday, July 29 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Errol “The Truth” Spence, Jr., the holder of three welterweight belts (WBA, WBC, IBF) faces Terence “Bud” Crawford (WBO champ) in a 12-round bout for welterweight supremacy and cementing Legacy forever.
It’s a rarity in boxing. The best fighting the best. Spence (28-0; 22 KOs) versus Crawford (39-0; 30 KOs) to unify the titles for the first time in the four-belt era. As an added bonus, they are both southpaws.
“The formula is simple,” stated International Boxing Hall of Fame trainer/broadcaster Teddy Atlas of Staten Island. “If you put the best in with the best, the sport will flourish. The fans will come out.”
The ball got rolling when Crawford texted and spoke with Spence about doing this fight now. They conversed in a professional manner.
Originally scheduled for November of last year, negotiations fell apart and the fighters went their separate ways only to wind up facing each other eight months later.
“We both were on the same page,” said Crawford, from Omaha, NE. “We both wanted to be undisputed welterweight champion of the world. We knew the importance for us to get in the ring and fight one another. We came together, and we got the deal done.”
“We got to show these other fighters that there is a reward for taking risks,” explained Spence, born in Brentwood, Long Island and living in Dallas, TX. “The best got to fight the best.”
The problem with boxing is the best shun fighting the best because, God forbid, someone may lose their undefeated record or high ranking.
“Certain promoters won’t let their guy go across the street to fight that [big] guy,” noted Atlas. “[Mike] Tyson said it well, years ago when he said, ‘The boss is the fighter.’”
There have been other welterweight Legacy fights in the recent past. Sugar Ray Leonard and Tommy Hearns fought to unify the division when there were only two organizations (WBA, WBC) in 1981.
The same goes for Oscar De La Hoya and Felix Trinidad in 1999 when they battled to unify the welterweight titles again when there were only two organizations.
And don’t forget Pernell Whitaker versus Julio Cesar Chavez in 1993.
Leonard stopped Hearns in 14 rounds while Trinidad won a majority decision over De La Hoya in 12. Chavez and Whitaker fought to a bogus “draw.”
The six champs only had two losses on their records (Leonard to Roberto Duran; Whitaker to Jose Luis Ramirez).
The fighters know this bout is for their Legacy. And while Leonard (25), Hearns (23), De La Hoya and Trinidad (both 26) were in their prime, Chavez was 31, Whitaker 29, while both Crawford (35) and Spence (33) are a little long in the tooth.
Atlas, who has trained 18 world champions, thinks sometimes fighters wait too long to cash in. He knows the Mayweather-Pacquaio welterweight title fight in 2015, “was five years too late,” as Mayweather was 38 and Pacquaio 36. He hopes that this fight is not overcooked.
“You’ve got two top guys you can make an argument for either one to win,” he said.
The fighters agree.
