The winner of this Saturday’s Errol Spence Jr.-Yordenis Ugas welterweight title unification bout will own three of the four belts in the 147 lb. glamor division. It’ll be the culmination of a playoff-like run of contests that has featured Spence beating guys like Shawn Porter and Danny Garcia and Ugas defeating Manny Pacquiao. More importantly, the winner of this upcoming pay-per-view clash at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas will affirm his spot as shot-caller in the division.
WBO welterweight titlist Terence Crawford may still have a very legit claim at being the BEST welterweight in the world in a theoretical sense, but Saturday’s winner will, rightfully, be “the man.”
Premier Boxing Champions (PBC), which works with both Spence and Ugas, has done a pretty comprehensive job in owning as much of the welterweight division as possible for quite a while now. With the exception of Crawford and shockingly few others, the top welters of the last few years have fought under the PBC banner.
While the number of elite-level names, through boxing natural selection (i.e. fighting one another), has dwindled down to just a small handful, PBC still pretty much runs the 147 lb. show.
And they plan on keeping it that way.
The Al Haymon-run boxing company is not only securing the top dog’s status atop the division with this Spence-Ugas unification, it’s also been acquiring talent at the second tier level with an eye on re-stocking their main stage welterweight inventory.
Saturday’s undercard offers a glimpse of the next-gen PBC talent (and PBC-friendly players).
Canada’s Cody Crowley, coming off a win over undefeated IBF no.1 contender Kudratillo Abdukakhorov in December, is a tough-guy southpaw taking on the perpetually battle-ready Josesito Lopez.
On the non-PPV portion of the card, undefeated Lithuanian, Eimantas Stanionis challenges for a lesser version of the WBA welterweight title when he faces PBC-friendly Radzhab Butaev.
Rashidi Ellis, who isn’t on Saturday’s card, recently announced that he had signed with PBC, leaving behind Golden Boy, which had done, almost literally, nothing to advance his career. At 28, the talented boxer is in his physical prime and should already be taking a stab at high-end main events, not used as filler on small casino undercards. And, most definitely, he shouldn’t have been sitting on the shelf since October, 2020.
PBC also still has a solid second and third tier of veteran 147-pounders, plus a couple of elite-level aces-in-the-hole in Keith Thurman and Danny Garcia.
When it comes to, arguably, the top young welterweight in the world, Jaron “Boots” Ennis, an odd working relationship will play out over the next couple of years. The 24-year-old Ennis is not a PBC contract player, but he did just sign a multi-fight deal with Showtime, which, in turn, has a deal with PBC. Ennis has been on PBC shows before and will be facing Custio Clayton in an IBF eliminator underneath the May 14 Jermell Charlo-Brian Castaño junior middleweight title unification on Showtime.
This working relationship will go along just fine, until Ennis’ ambitions bring him to directly target one of the PBC top dogs. Then, things should get really interesting. Although Ennis and his team are happily independent, it’s not hard to envision a scenario where some sort of more formal business relationship with PBC materializes in the coming months.
There are also online rumors buzzing about when it comes to Terence Crawford and the possibility of him signing a deal with PBC to eventually get a crack at the winner of Spence-Ugas.
Outside of the PBC world, the only welterweight that registers as more than a blip on the radar is Vergil Ortiz Jr., who is neck-and-neck with Jaron Ennis when it comes to being the best young fighter in the division. But rumors have him not long for 147 and, even if he were to stay at welter, there’d be nobody to fight to cement his legacy without a deal, to some extent, between current promoter Golden Boy and PBC.
So, while this current run of main stage welterweights appears to be working itself down to just one or two names, the folks at Premier Boxing Champions don’t plan on relinquishing their hold on the welterweight division anytime soon.