Errol Spence Jr issued a decisive verdict when asked to name who was better between Floyd Mayweather Jr and Terence Crawford, two fighters he respectively sparred and fought.
The former unified world champion lost his titles to Crawford in 2023, back when their welterweight contest developed into an entirely one-sided spectacle.
Prior to his punishing ninth-round stoppage defeat, Spence was considered by many to be the top dog at 147lbs, having beaten the likes of Shawn Porter, Danny Garcia and Yordenis Ugas during his title reign.
Crawford, however, firmly stamped his authority on the division before moving up to 154lbs, where he dethroned Israil Madrimov to become a four-division world champion.
The Nebraskan then climbed up to 168lbs, his fifth weight class, and ended his glittering career by outpointing Canelo Alvarez to become a three-division undisputed champion last year.
It is widely believed that Crawford reached his peak at welterweight, though, even if the level of opposition did not quite reflect his greatness.
Because of that, the career of ‘Bud’ is often compared with that of Mayweather, who campaigned in multiple divisions but arguably claimed his most notable victories at 147lbs.
For Spence, though, there is really no such competition between the two, as a sparring session in 2013 was ultimately enough to convince him that Mayweather was the better fighter.
Speaking with FightHype, ‘The Truth’ firmly insisted that Mayweather’s overall skillset and psychological edge was far superior to that of Crawford.
“It’s a big difference. Floyd is just different. I feel like he’s the best fighter. I don’t know about all time, he might be the best fighter of all time and, if not, he’s close.
There’s different things that Floyd does. He was a lot older when I sparred him and there are just certain things he does that are real tricky.
We’d get in the clinch and he was like squeezing my nose so I couldn’t breathe and stuff like that. Veteran, all-time type stuff. Mentally, I feel like he’s the best.”
Mayweather sparred Spence in preparation for his WBC title defence against Robert Guerrero, which came over a decade before the Texan lost to Crawford.
