By Sean Jones: Errol Spence’s title defense of his IBF & WBC welterweight belts against Danny Garcia is now official for November 21 at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, California, on Fox Sports PBC on pay-per-view.
Although the Spence-Garcia fight was unofficially announced last week, it’s now a done deal for Nov.21 on PPV at 6:00 p.m. ET.
Garcia 36-2, 21 KOs) is ranked #2 WBC, and he’s won his last two fights against Adrian Granados and Ivan Redkach to put himself in position to challenge for Spence’s two titles at welterweight.
Is Spence still the same fighter?
Errol vs. Danny is an exciting fight that will show just where Spence is at in coming back from his car crash last October. Spence has been given medical clearance to fight after recovering from cuts, bruises, and lost teeth from the accident. Errol flew out of his car on impact as it tumbled several times.
You’ve got to say that Spence was fortunate that he was ejected from his vehicle, seeing that he could have been seriously hurt had he remained inside of it. The car looked beyond recognition at the scene of the accident, and one can only guess how fast Spence was traveling at the time of his crash.
Some like promoter Lou Dibella says Spence was traveling at 150 mph, but that’s just a wild guess. Whatever the speed, Spence lost control of the car, and it cartwheeled several times before stopping. It’s lucky that no one was hurt aside from Spence.
Nevertheless, we’re not going to know if Spence, 30, is the same fighter until he steps inside the ring and competes with former two-division world champion Danny’ Swift’ on November 21.
It’ll have been thirteen months since Spence’s car crash and fourteen months from his last fight by the time he enters the ring against Philadelphia native Garcia on Nov.21.
If Spence is going to be able to come back from the car crash of his Ferrari Spyder, you would think one year of rest will have been enough.
Garcia won’t receive credit for beating Spence
The way this thing is set up, poor Danny won’t receive any credit if he beats Spence because boxing fans will conclude the only reason he won was that Errol wasn’t the same guy.
There is a lot of interest in the Spence-Garcia fight even though Danny, 32, has lost two out of his last five matches since 2017. Garcia is an excellent fighter, but he’s not nearly the same guy that he was when he was competing at 140 from 2007 to 2014.
Danny had to move up to 147 in 2014, as he’d outgrown the division and was beginning to struggle to make weight. You can argue that Garcia should have made a move up to welterweight in 2013 because he was starting to look huge compared to his opponents in that weight class.
In Garcia’s only two losses at 147, he was outworked by Shawn Porter in 2018 in a 12 round decision, and outboxed by Keith Thurman in 2017. Porter and Thurman used entirely different strategies to beat Garcia.
Thurman employed a hit and run approach that made it difficult for the flat-f00ted, slow-legged Garcia to get to him with his power shots. It still proved to be a very close fight between them, because Thurman gassed out after six rounds and barely held on to get the win.
Danny can’t start slowly
In Porter’s case, he mugged Danny on the inside, using a combination of grappling, short punches, and roughhouse tactics to get the better of him.
Garcia had a hard time early on with Porter’s physical style, but he adjusted well in the second half and looked like the better fighter in the championship rounds.
But again, it was a situation where Danny’s slow start in rounds one through six doomed him to another loss.
He gave away too many rounds to Porter in the first half of the fight and was unable to make up ground in the last stretch of the contest.
For Garcia to beat Spence, he’ll need to go after him from the first bell, and not hesitate the way he did against Thurman and Porter. Giving away the first six rounds against Spence will put Garcia in a position where he’ll need a knockout to win in the second half.
You can bet that Spence’s training team will drum into his head to use his boxing skills to beat Danny, and not get into a 12-round war against him like he foolishly did in his recent win over Shawn Porter last September.
Garcia previously held the WBC welterweight title from 2016 to 2017. He beat Robert Guerrero by a close 12 round unanimous decision in January 2016 to claim the belt, but then he lost it in his first defense against Thurman in March 2017.
In 2018, Garcia attempted to recapture his WBC welterweight title against Porter but lost a razor-close 12 round unanimous decision in September of that year.
Errol angry at his doubters
All these so called boxing experts get screen shotted wait till nov.21st is over 🙃
— Errol Spence (@ErrolSpenceJr) August 2, 2020
Given what Spence went through with his car crash, you can’t criticize boxing fans for having doubts about his ability to return to his previous form. Frankly, Spence is lucky to be alive, and it’s logical for fans to be questioning his viability in the sport at this point.
To perform at the top level where Spence is at, you need to be 100% healthy, and you can’t have lingering neurological problems fro a high-speed car crash. That’s one of the chief reasons why a lot of people think Spence is making a miscalculation with his career by electing not to take a tune-up fight and is going straight into a match against one of the most dangerous punchers in the 147lb division.
If Spence had chosen a highly ranked boxer like Amir Khan or Josh Kelly, there would be less to worry about because neither of those fighters has the type of power that could dent his chin. But Garcia is one of the hardest, if not the hardest, punchers in the 147lb division.
If there’s an unseen problem with Spence’s brain from his horrible crash last October, Danny is someone that can bring that out. There’s a reason why fighters generally take tune-ups after they’ve been in an accident or had a physical problem.
Their management needs to take a careful approach with them to ensure that they’re ready to get back in the saddle and compete with the best in the sport. Spence is doing the opposite.
Danny = a risky fight for ‘The Truth’
Spence is skipping the part where he should be taking a tune-up, and going straight into a match against one of the toughest fighters in the 147lb division.
From the outside, it looks like a wreckless gamble on Spence’s part in taking this fight, and it’s likely that his management has voiced concerns about the wisdom in taking this risk.
Beating Garcia won’t prove that Spence is #1 at 147. He’s still going to need to defeat WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford to take that position. It wouldn’t hurt if Spence gave Porter a rematch so that he can clear up the controversy over the results of their fight in 2019.
As for as Manny Pacquiao and Keith Thurman go, Spence can’t force those two to fight him. It would be nice if Spence could face those guys so he can further cement his position as #1 at 147lb, but there’s nothing he can do if they’re unwilling to fight him.
Spence can’t physically drag Pacquiao and Thurman, kicking and screaming into the gym to face him if they don’t want to fight him.