Kenny Porter: ‘We’ve said, ‘Yes,’ to Errol Spence fight’

By Allan Fox

Boxingnews24.com

Trainer Kenny Porter says WBC welterweight champion Shawn Porter has said, ‘Yes,’ to the unification fight with IBF welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr. (25-0, 21 KOs), and they’re just waiting to be given the green light from him and his management that they want to make the fight happen.

Spence is still waiting to see if Manny Pacquiao will take the fight with him in June or July like he recently agreed to. If Pacquiao isn’t interested, then Porter (30-2-1, 17 KOs) is definitely he wants next, says Spence.

“[Spence] just needs to make that decision because we’ve already said ‘yes’ to the people that matter, not just to someone who’s interviewing us,” Kenny Porter said to Fighthub. We said ‘yes’ to the people that matter, they know we’ve already accepted the fight.”

It’s a waiting game right now for Spence. As soon as he finds out whether Pacquiao, 40, is going to take the fight with him, then he can make the decision on his next fight. It’s good that Porter wants the fight with Spence, and isn’t a situation where he’s going to need to be chased to make the unification fight. Spence revealed recently that he wanted to make the fight with Porter before he fought Mikey, but he didn’t want to take the fight with him at that time. Porter wanted to fight his World Boxing Council mandatory challenger Yordenis Ugas (23-4, 11 KOs) for whatever reason.

Porter could have easily delayed the Ugas fight and taken the unification with Spence, but he decided to face the 32-year-old talented Cuban, and it almost backfired on him. Ugas took the fight to Porter, and was out-punching him, and getting the better of him in their exchanges in their fight on March 9 on Premier Boxing Champions on FS1 at the Dignity Health Sports Park, in Carson, California. Porter lucked out with the scoring by two of the judges, who scored it in his favor 116-112, 115-113. The third judge scored it for Ugas 117-111.

“We love Dallas. We’d come to Dallas. Yeah, we’d do that,” Kenny said about Shawn being willing to fight Spence in his hometown of Dallas, Texas. “You’re not going to be with a guy in Shawn Porter who’s going to sit back and try to be defensive. Not going to happen. So it’s going to be a fight breaking out real soon. It’s going to happen. All we need is the opportunity,” Kenny Porter said.

Kenny assuming that Spence is going to fight Porter the same way he fought Mikey Garcia by boxing him, and then not having anything coming back. Spence knows that Porter will try and mug him on the inside the way he did against Andre Berto, Paulie Malignaggi and Danny Garcia. That’s how Porter mostly fights. It’s only recently that Porter has reverted to boxing on the outside when facing brawlers with a great engine and good power in Adrian Granados and Ugas. Those guys aren’t huge punchers, but they had enough power to give Porter a lot of prospects, especially with their excellent stamina. Porter, 31, would have had to deal with getting hit a lot by those guys, and it would have been a grueling fight. Porter knew he couldn’t beat Ugas and Granados by roughing them up the same way he did against Malignaggi, Garcia and Berto.

“We’ve never been offered the fight before this,” Kenny said about the Spence fight not being offered to them in the past. “[Spence] is considering Pacquiao and I understand that, that’s great for him if he can pull that fight off. But like Shawn said: ‘don’t look left, don’t look right,’ look right here and we’re willing to take that right now, as soon as they say yes to it.”

If Spence can’t get the fight with Pacquiao, then Porter it is. Spence knows he’s got to unify the welterweight division, and Porter is a good fight for him. Porter isn’t going to duck the fight the way that Keith ‘One Time’ Thurman is perceived to be doing by fans. Thurman doesn’t want to fight Spence until 2020, and even then, it remains to be seen if ‘One Time’ will take the fight with him. Spence’s body attack, and power on the inside is going to be a problem for Porter, who doesn’t hit with enough power to be in that kind of a trading war.

If Spence decides to box the short 5’7″ Porter from the outside the way he did Mikey, it’s going to be a one-sided fight. Porter doesn’t have much of an outside game due to his short height and reach. Spence has a two inch reach advantage, and a better jab. If Spence decides to box, it’s going to be a duplicate of the Spence-Garcia fight. However, Spence said after the fight that he wants to go back to bulldozing his opponents. He says it’s boring to box. There are cases where shorter guys are able to beat the taller fighters, but Spence is a different story. He hits harder than Porter, and has a better inside and outside game. It’s going to be tough for Porter no matter where the fight is fought at, inside or outside.

Porter is going to go back to the style of roughing up his opponents on the inside. Porter knows he can’t fight a tall guy like Spence from the outside without getting picked apart by his jab. So what we’re going to likely see from Porter is him crashing into Spence all night long with his head-first ramming style of fighting. We’re probably see a lot of head-butting from Porter like he did against Malignaggi, Berto and Danny Garcia. Spence will need to make sure he comes out slugging to get Porter there earlier otherwise he’s going to suffer some cuts from head-butts that will make the fight more difficult for him.

Last September, Porter squeaked out a 12 round unanimous decision win over Danny Garcia in beating him by the scores 116-112, 115-113 and 115-113 to capture the vacant World Boxing Council welterweight title. In Porter’s first defense, he defeated Ugas by a 12 round split decision this month on March 9.