Terence “Bud” Crawford put on a masterclass on July 29th when he became a two-time undisputed champion in two different weight divisions, light welterweight and welterweight, after he dispose of the former undefeated WBA/WBC/IBF welterweight world champion Errol “The Truth” Spence.
Before the fight, the build up was Spence was the bigger man and he would walk down Crawford. Spence also took verbal jabs at Crawford’s opposition asking him who has he fought? Spence questioned the opposition at welterweight as if Crawford fought bums and was so confident heading into the fight that he already designed shirts and merchandise celebrating a victory over Crawford.
It seemed Spence was relying on his supposed size advantage. That is the worst thing you can do in boxing is to think you are the stronger, bigger man and just assume that you will walk a guy down and win on size alone. Look what happened when fighters thought they could bully former featherweight Manny Pacquiao, they got demolished thinking their size could intimidate him.
I always laughed at Spence suggesting his size would be a factor, when they first met they were not that far off in size, they looked similar and Crawford actually looked more solid.
I remember watching some of Crawford’s social media posts in the past of him training and being amazed at how strong he was. The moment I knew he was a force and would be able to destroy Spence was when he posted video of him deadlifting 455 pounds.
On fight night Spence had to find out the hard way that he wasn’t as big or as strong as he thought he was. He looked like the smaller man. Crawford was the thicker fighter and they were similar in height. Crawford has the superior reach and was stronger in every aspect it was like Spence’s face and body was made of paper mache he was cut easy and his face was bleeding early from every punch Crawford landed even grazing shots seem to wobble Spence.
Crawford man handled him and it was painful to watch. I kept yelling for the ref to stop the fight. It was one of the worst one sided beatdowns in big fight history. The build up and pre-fight promotion had everyone believing it would be a 50-50 fight, but it was the total opposite. There was no competition it was as if a professional seasoned boxer was fighting a novice that’s how it looked. Was Errol Spence Jr exposed as a hype job? Kinda. I say that because a lot of his fans were gassing him up because of a sparring session he had with Floyd Mayweather Jr. and he supposedly gave him good work.
When Mayweather retired his fans jumped onto Spence bandwagon and were calling him the boogeyman of 147 pounds. They even made Terence Crawford the enemy and criticized him and called him the hype job who was ducking Spence because he was scared to get beat.
In Spence, I only saw a guy who relied on his size to win, he was basic, he had no head movement, couldn’t fight on the back foot, just walked a guy down, and had good conditioning. Most of the guys Spence fought had poor movement and were predictable stationary fighters. The one opponent he fought who gave him trouble was Shawn Porter. Porter was not your typical stationary fighter and that made it difficult for Spence to get his timing going. I believed Porter edged the fight out but the judges gave it to Spence.
After the loss to Crawford, a lot of Spence fans claimed he was weight drained and came up with a myriad of excuses like the neurological effects of the car crash from a few years ago. The problem is they were not bringing up those excuses when he beat Danny Garcia and Yordenis Ugas. They said Spence would destroy Crawford after he stopped Ugas who was a stationary fighter.
Crawford was the better man, a rematch at 154 pounds won’t make a difference the same outcome will happen and Spence will get bullied, and pummeled with the ref stopping the fight or him getting knocked out. We have to be fair, Spence was hyped up by fan boys and exposed. He is a decent fighter but he isn’t an all time great like they claimed he was.
Crawford showed to the world he is an all time great, and if he decides to go up to 154 pounds to challenge Jermell Charlo for the undisputed junior middleweight title and wins, he will be in the upper echelon of fighters in boxing history. A three division undisputed world champion would put him in the top 15 greatest boxers in history.
