By Dan Ambrose: Errol Spence Jr and Danny Garcia both plan on being at their best for their fight on November 21 on Fox Sports pay-per-view. The two fighters sat down on Sunday to discuss with PBC on Fox their head to head match-up in two months from now.
Spence (26-0, 21 KOs) is defending his IBF/WBC welterweight titles against the former two-division world champion Garcia (36-2, 21 KOs).
Before last October, Spence, 30, would have been viewed as a big favorite to beat the 32-year-old Garcia. That’s changed now.
Spence’s car crash from October 10 last year has a lot of boxing fans and the oddsmakers wondering whether he’ll be the same guy that he once was. That’s what makes this fight so hard to predict.
Spence may have lost something from his game, and if he did, then Danny isn’t the guy you want to be in with after a car accident.
In Spence’s last fight against Shawn Porter on September 28, a year ago, he was fought to a standstill. That fight happened just two weeks before Spence crashed his Ferrari on October 10 in Dallas, Texas. Errol was lucky to survive the accident.
Spence has a lot of tools
“I got so many gears. I can box, bang, sit there, I can use angles,” said Errol Spence Jr on PBC on Fox. “Danny only has one gear. Counter-punch and be patient.
“With me, he’s got to train for everything. I’m going to dictate everything that’s going to happen in the fight,” said Errol.
Garcia’s one gear might be enough for him to defeat Spence, as all he needs to do is land a hard left-counter punch for him to win. If Spence’s chin isn’t what it was before his horrific car crash, Danny could KO him and take his two world titles from him.
A lot of fighters see Danny before they fight him, and they mistakenly think it’s going to be easy to defeat him. But they find out the hard way that it’s not as easy as it looks when they get in the ring with him.
Garcia has won his last two fights against Ivan Redkash and Adrian Granados. The only two defeats that Danny has suffered at 147 were to Keith Thurman and Shawn Porter.
Those are fighters that would have beaten Garcia even at 140. He didn’t lose because he’s now fighting at 147. Danny lost because he fought guys that used the right approach to beat him.
Porter stayed on the inside the entire fight and mugged Garcia in beating him by a close 12 round unanimous decision in 2018.
Danny Garcia ready to beat Errol at his own game
“I’m going to have to disagree with that,” said Danny Garcia. “I can outbox the sluggers and out-bang the bangers. I’ve faced the hardest hitters, and my chin stood up to the test. I fought the fastest fighters, and I beat them because I was better, not just because I was a counter puncher,” said Danny.
“And I think a lot of that was because I wasn’t comfortable where I was in my life,” said Garcia. “I was already a two-division world champion. Maybe I didn’t wake up as much as I should have for those fights as far as grit and wanting it more.
For this fight, I feel like this is it for me. I’m seasoned now, and I’ve been in a lot of tough fights. I feel good. I feel like my career is where I want it to be, and I feel better than ever,” Garcia said.
If Garcia doesn’t slug with Spence, he’s going to wind up getting outboxed from the outside. Spence will likely attempt to outbox Danny in this fight, mostly because of the car accident.
Also, Spence will want to prove the boxing fans wrong about him not having defensive skills. He got hit a lot against porter last September, and he’s going to want to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
Who can forget Garcia’s fight against Amir Khan in 2012? Garcia was getting embarrassed by the faster fighter Khan in the first two rounds, but in the third, he hurt him in the third with a left hook. In the 4th, Danny finished Khan off after dropping him.
Errol notes that Danny hasn’t excelled at 147
“At 140, I’m not going to lie. He was doing his thing,” said Spence about Danny Garcia. “He was a great champion, but at 147, he’s fallen short.”
“I feel like my talent, my skills, my ability, and I can’t wait to show everybody what I got,” Spence said when asked what separates him from the other 147-pounders.
“I feel like I fell off a little bit after the Lamont Peterson fight. Getting back to the old me was training 24/7 and eat, sleep, and basic boxing.
“Three months after the accident, I started running,” continued Spence. “My hips were still hurting and things like that, and then I got up in weight too. I got up to 192.
“Getting back in shape was the toughest part. Being young, you get a false sense of security, and you think you’re invincible. I didn’t have life insurance, and when you have a near-death experience, you finally realize that if I died, I’d probably have left a lot of people basically in the cold.
“The things for my kid and where the money was going to go and things like that changed my perspective on life, and not taking boxing and just life overall for granted,” said Errol.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRxhbN27Lvc
If Danny can get to Spence’s chin with one of his left hooks, he’s got a good chance of hurting him. When Garcia has an opponent hurt, he’s proven to be a good finish.
Garcia can look bad in the opening rounds, but then suddenly, he’ll land one of his beautiful left hook counters, and it’s all over. Spence has shown to have a good chin, but he’s never fought a guy with Danny’s power.
Danny doesn’t want to ride horses
“Nah, I don’t ride horses, baby,” said Danny Garcia when asked if we’ll see him on a horse as we’ve seen with Spence.
“Yeah, the horse goes a little bit slower than the Ferrari,” said Spence. “I’m riding the horses right now.”
If Spence gets clipped by one of Garcia’s left hooks, he may not be able to get back up to beat the count.