Key events
Nonito Donaire has fallen short in his latest bid at history. The four-division champion known as the Filipino Flash, who was looking to break his own record by becoming the oldest bantamweight champion in boxing history, was outpointed over 12 rounds by Mexico’s Alexando Santiago, who picked up the WBC belt at 118lbs that was vacated by Naoya Inoue earlier this year. The ringside judges handed down a unanimous decision by scores of 115-113, 116-112 and 116-112. (The Guardian had it 116-112 to Santiago.)
“I feel good still, and a big congratulations to Alexandro, because he deserves it, he’s a tough guy,” the 40-year-old Donaire said. “I love the sport so much, but we gotta go back to the locker room and talk about it. I felt good, but some things just didn’t trigger. I didn’t pull the trigger. I was just trying to counter so much, trying to put too much power into it.”
“We were very focused, and in training camp, we tried to find the mistakes Nonito makes,” said Santiago, who improved to 27-3-5 with 14 KOs.
Asked what Donaire told him after the fight, Santiago said, “It’s been an honor to fight such a legend like Nonito Donaire, and he just told me thank you for this great fight.”
Some more historical bric-a-brac as we count down toward the main event. We’ve already mentioned how tonight’s feature attraction is the first undisputed welterweight championship fight in boxing’s four-belt era, which dates back to either 1988 or 2004, depending on who you ask. (Don’t ask.)
Additionally, Spence-Crawford is only the fourth welterweight title unification fight between unbeaten champions. The other three:
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Donald Curry (WBA, IBF) v Milton McCrory (WBA) in 1985
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Felix Trinidad (IBF) v Oscar De La Hoya (WBC) in 1999
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Keith Thurman (WBA) v Danny Garcia (WBC) in 2017
Remarkably, it’s been 37 years s since all of the recognized world titles were on the line in a welterweight title fight: when Lloyd Honeyghan stopped the aforementioned Curry at Caesars Atlantic City to capture the WBA, WBC and IBF titles in one of the great upsets in the annals of British boxing.
As the Guardian’s John Rawling wrote about it:
The Ragamuffin Man’s seventh-round victory ranks second only to Randolph Turpin’s 1951 victory over Sugar Ray Robinson as the greatest upset in British boxing history as many classed Curry as the world’s best pound-for-pound fighter. Bobby Neill, who trained the Bermondsey fighter, remembers: “Nobody gave him a chance. All the press were talking about how many rounds it would go before Curry knocked him out. But I have never seen anybody so fixed in his belief that he would win as Lloyd. His training and mental attitude were unbelievable.
“Curry could punch with both hands and was a brilliant boxer but we reckoned he was open to left hooks to the body. Lloyd just went through the jabs and broke him up to the body. He had no fear, no trepidation and I have never seen a boxer who was given no chance be so completely and absolutely dominant. To go into a foreign country and win like that against a man like Curry was amazing.”
Honeyghan, at the time Mike Tyson’s favourite fighter, made three successful defences before losing to the Mexican Jorge Vaca the following year. After winning the re-match he made one more defence before losing his title to the American Marlon Starling in 1989.
Last thing (probably): Should Crawford win tonight, he’ll become the first male fighter in the four-belt era to become an undisputed champion in two different weight classes (at 140lbs and 147lbs)..
Yoenis Tellez made the most of an unexpected opportunity in tonight’s first televised preliminary fight. The 23-year-old Cuban junior middleweight prospect, who stepped in on two and a half weeks’ notice when unbeaten contender Jesus Ramos suffered a hand injury in training, delivered a statement victory with a third-round TKO of the Spanish veteran Sergio García.
The fight unfolded on even terms over the first two rounds, but Tellez dropped García with a concussive right hand early in the third. The Spaniard made it to his feet but Tellez swarmed his wounded prey until referee Robert Hoyle intervened at the 2:02 mark.
It was a precipitous step up in class for Tellez, who improved to 6-0 as a professional with five knockouts, but he more than proved up to the challenge.
“[The finish] was the assassin instinct that us Cubans have,” Tellez said through an interpreter. “As soon as I saw him [hurt] I knew it was time that he was done so I went for it.”
He added: My trainer Ronnie Shields and my whole team behind me, we worked on this during training camp, especially the right hand. And it came out just the way it was supposed to come out.”
What’s next?
“Right now my goal is not defined yet,” Tellez said. “But I want to face the best 154-pounders that are out there.”
Prelude
Hello and welcome to Las Vegas for tonight’s long-awaited showdown between Errol Spence Jr and Terence Crawford. We’re ringside at the T-Mobile Arena for a mouth-watering matchup of undefeated American stars more than five years in the making. Crawford (39-0, 30 KOs) has campaigned in the same weight class as Spence since 2018, when he moved up to capture the WBO’s version of the welterweight title and rumblings of a fight began in earnest. By then Spence (28-0, 22 KOs) was already the IBF’s champion at 147lbs and has since added the WBC and WBA belts.
That means the winner of tonight’s scheduled 12-round fight will become the first undisputed welterweight champion in boxing’s four-belt era, which dates back to 2004. He will also stake a credible claim, alongside Japanese terror Naoya Inoue, as the world’s best prizefighter regardless of weight: the so-called pound-for-pound No 1.
It’s the best fight that boxing can deliver. And it might have never happened if the fighters themselves hadn’t taken matters into their own hands:
It’s rare enough that two boxers at or near the top of the sport’s pound-for-pound list compete in the same weight class and rarer still that both are roughly the same age. A summit meeting between Spence and Crawford for all the welterweight marbles has been a no-brainer for years. But Spence is promoted by Premier Boxing Champions while Crawford spent most of his career with Top Rank: rival promotional companies who rarely cross the street to do business with each other.
Just when it seemed like it might be dying on the vine like so many other would-be blockbusters, a path forward emerged when Crawford reached out Spence on Facetime for a half-hour conversation in March to hash out the details. From there it wasn’t long before concessions were made, terms were agreed upon and the fight was made. Vegas when it sizzles.
It’s nearly 6pm in Las Vegas and the televised undercard is under way. The main event is expected to begin in two hours, give or take. Plenty to come between now and then.
Bryan will be here shortly. In the meantime here’s his lookahead to tonight’s main event.