Former welterweight titleholder Shawn Porter took some time to give his deep dive on the upcoming undisputed heavyweight title unification between Errol Spence and Terence Crawford. Being someone who’s been in the ring with both fights, Porter talks a bit about his experience and explains why this should prove to be the great matchup we’re all anticipating. Check out some of what he had to say below.
“Really there’s one narrative,” Porter said. “That narrative is that Terence Crawford can do more things in the ring, he’s got more tools in his toolbox, and even though Errol Spence is a basic boxer, he’s the most fundamentally sound boxer in the world. I do agree with that but Errol got more in his arsenal as well and I think that we’ve never been able to see him pull out everything that he’s had to use.
“Terence has been in the ring with guys who have done different things and he’s had to present other things, going into his toolbox. But I do think from an X’s and O’s standpoint it’s all a matter of what are you going to do this round, because they both have the ability to make adjustments and they both have the ability to be aggressive, they both have the ability to fight off the back foot, counter punch.
“This is an outstanding fight because they both have A+ in every box. I honestly think we’re gonna see probably three different strategies from both of them throughout the course of a 12 round fight, maybe even four or five.
“When I fought Errol, going into that fight I said ‘I need everything to beat this guy, I can’t leave anything at the gym, I can’t leave anything at home.’ I had to take everything in order to beat this guy. And I think about five rounds went by and just a simple move, a pull back counter, I counter punched his jab with my jab, and he shook his head and he said something. And I thought to myself ‘oh, I got you.’
“And what I realized in that moment was he’s not as intellectually sound as I thought he was going to be and that seemed to kind of carry through the entire fight. I felt like I was a step ahead of Errol the entire fight all the way up until that knockdown moment, and that was surprising to me.
“I thought Errol was gonna be more intelligent in the ring, and I thought that simple pull back counter move — it’s one thing to get hit with it, things happen, but for him to acknowledge it and show how frustrated he was in that moment and then I started to see other moments of frustration as well…I think ever since his accident that Errol has sustained, and I think having to come back from that and having to just grow up and get rid of a lot of things in his life, I think he’s a smarter fight now than he was when we fought in 2019, and I don’t think there’s gonna be any surprises for either guy in the ring.
“The calculated pressure from Errol has to be something that he sustains the entire night, that he continues to put on the pressure and the body punching…If you’re Terence Crawford, you got to get to Errol’s body. You got to make him uncomfortable, do things to him that he’s not used to having been done to him, going to the body is certainly one of them…Errol has a really tight defense, keeps his hands at home. If he’s not punching, his hands are up, and that’s something you can’t say about a lot of fighters.
“So with a guy like that you have to find openings. Openings are usually there when that punch is being released…so punch when he’s punching.”