By Jeff Zimmerman
Photos by Jeff Zimmerman

FightNews caught up last week with IBF #1 mandatory welterweight Errol Spence Jr. (21-0, 18 KOs) at the R&R Boxing Club in Dallas, Texas before his sparring session with Roy Jones promoted cruiserweight Adrian Taylor. Spence Jr. discussed Kell Brook returning to 147 to defend his title, his good friend and fellow “Big D” fighter Maurice Hooker, unification, and more.

Thoughts on Kell Brook returning to welterweight to defend his IBF title: I’m good, I’m happy. I’m happy he’s coming down to 147 and fight and I can fight the champion and not fight somebody for a vacated belt. So I’m excited about it, hopefully he can get down and we can make this happen sooner than later.

The possibility that a Pacquiao vs. Brook clash gets in the way of things: I don’t see it as a possibility right now, I don’t see Pacquiao fighting him (Brook) right now. I’m the #1 mandatory, I can’t worry about what’s outside of my hands of him trying to fight Pacquiao and all that. I am just going to force my issue and try to get that fight with Kell Brook hopefully sometime in February or March.

A reported 75/25 split of the purse in favor of Brook: I don’t know anything about that. I need to talk to my manager about that but I all I want is to fight and I know I’m going to get my money either way it goes. I’m worried about the fight, we need to fight and make this fight happen, a lot of fans want to see this fight! It’s a big time fight, its two guys in their prime, two top, big welterweights fighting each other and I think it’s an exciting fight.

Is Brook the best of today’s welterweight champions: I don’t consider him the best. I mean the only person he beat was Shawn Porter so the rest of his fights he has been fighting voluntary defenses and mandatory’s against other guys. I think the best welterweight is going to be the winner of Keith Thurman and Danny Garcia on paper, they will be fighting on who’s the best welterweight in the division right now. And then hopefully when I fight Kell Brook, I will fight the winner out of Keith Thurman and Danny Garcia.

Fighting Brook in the UK: I don’t mind. Like Kell Brook said they are going to go to a purse bid so they don’t want to do negotiations but rather a purse bid. Whoever wins the purse bid, we will either fight here or the UK but either way it doesn’t matter.

On his good friend Maurice “Mighty Mo” Hooker fighting on PPV under Kovalev-Ward this week: I am excited for him, it shows a lot of hard work. I grew up with Maurice all through the amateurs. We would go to the gym together, we sparred together and I’m happy for him. It’s a lot of hard work and a lot of dedication to get to this point and he has been through a lot of adversity too. I hope he’s a 100% focused and I want to see him win, I want to see him win a world title. That would be great for boxing, me and him from Dallas, we both have world titles. I think that would open a lot of doors for the amateurs that’s coming behind us and make a lot of promoters and managers look in Dallas and say ‘ok they got some fighters coming out of Dallas.’

If a fight with Hooker would ever materialize down the road if both held world titles: No, I don’t see that happening fighting each other. It’s a big ocean and a lot of top dawgs. I am not even looking at that fight, because I got guys like Danny Garcia, Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter, and Kell Brook. All these tough good fights, Shawn Porter, Manny Pacquiao, Jessie Vargas. You got all these tough good fights at 147 so I’m not looking at nobody at 140 or 154, I’m looking at the top notch guys right now that’s in my top five, that’s in my top ten right now and I have to beat them to become the top dawg.

His goal to unify at welterweight and then at jr middleweight: Yes, definitely after I unify 147, I want to go to 154 and do the same thing. I have big aspirations for myself.

His timetable for unifying at welterweight and then moving to jr middleweight: Yes a couple years out, it depends on how fast I get these titles.