Shawn Porter: ‘Terence Crawford has met his match’

By Boxing News - 11/12/2021 - Comments

By Chris Williams: Shawn Porter is warning Terence Crawford that he’s met his match and he’s going to find out on November 20th when they battle at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.

Porter sees himself being able to adapt and disrupt Crawford’s game on the fly on Saturday night and batter him. Shawn isn’t worried about Crawford fighting as a southpaw because he’s fought those types of fighters before.

Porter (31-3-1, 17 KOs) feels confident that he’s going to beat the 34-year-old Crawford (37-0, 28 KOs) to take his WBO welterweight title.

Shawn is motivated to win

“Yeah,” said Shawn Porter to Fight Hub TV when asked if the fight is more difficult because Crawford is a cerebral guy. “My fight with Keith Thurman, he was the boogeyman when we fought [in 2016]. It’s funny that nobody refers to him as the boogeyman now.

Image: Shawn Porter: 'Terence Crawford has met his match'

“I went in that ring and said, ‘I don’t care who everybody thinks he is. I know who I am, and I’m going to show that.’

“The same thing with Errol Spence Jr, the same thing with Danny Garcia. Here’s the next one, Terence Crawford. I just look at him like he’s the next piece of the link, and I got to have that one.

“The closer we get, I feel it every day,” said Porter. “I haven’t been this excited about a fight in a long time. My fight with Errol Spence Jr, I got excited the week of. This one, I’ve been excited since the WBO made that Tweet, so it’s coming.

“For that, I’m probably going to play devil’s advocate. He [Crawford] probably underestimated him [Egidijus Kavaliauskas],” said Porter about Crawford struggling against ‘Mean Machine.’

“He probably looked at some film and didn’t take him too seriously and have his mind where it needed to be when the fight started,” Porter said.

It’s good that Porter is properly motivated for this fight with Crawford because he’s going to need to be for him to win.

Crawford showed vulnerability against Mean Machine

“He’ll have his mind where it needs to be when the fight starts, but I expect to make it as easy as can be,” said Porter. “Simply put, Terence has met his match. It’s not up to me to say things to convince anybody of that.

“37 fights, watch it for yourselves. Terence has met his match. If you don’t believe it, I’m not going to defend what I said. What I’m going to do is get in the ring on fight night,” said Porter.

“I agree with Shawn,” said Kenny Porter about Crawford struggling against ‘Mean Machine.’ “Maybe he looked at that guy I didn’t think he was a top-level guy, and I could see that because I’m quite sure other people look at him and see the same thing.

“As far as anything I learned from that in particular. Nothing in particular, but you definitely want to look and say if this guy was able to do that maybe we can do it as well or maybe more.

“So, of course, we worked on these kinds of things in the gym to exploit that if it happens if it’s there. ESPN was asking me today, ‘What is the thing that Shawn can do that Bud can’t do. What is the thing that Bud is vulnerable for?'” said Kenny.

Crawford was hurt in the fifth round by Mean Machine, and lucky that his opponent gassed out because he might have knocked him out. What we saw in that fight is Crawford struggles when an opponent goes after him in an all-out manner.

Earlier in Crawford’s career, he had similar problems when he fought the heavy-handed Briedis Prescott and Yuriorkis Gamboa when they were attacking him. Even Thomas Dulorme was getting the better of Crawford.

Porter will push a fast pace

“I believe Bud can do everything, and I believe Shawn has the ability to do everything as well,” said Kenny. “In terms of him [Crawford] being vulnerable anywhere?

“I don’t see being vulnerable, but Shawn has the ability to do things in split seconds in a second or two and change positions, and change movements.

“He can be in one place and be in another. I believe that’ll give us the opportunity to be successful. Just the fact that want to work at a certain pace, and we don’t work at that.

“We don’t work at a pace that guys want us to work at. So when I watched the Mean Machine fight, I did notice that they [Crawford] did work at a give and take pace.

“Yeah, a give and take place. You do something, I do something. Well, Shawn is, ‘I’m doing this, I’m doing that. What are you going to do? I’m doing something else?’

“So, very disruptive. It makes for a great fight. When people say, ‘Styles make fights,’ they don’t really understand the term,” said Kenny.

From watching Viktor Postol fight, Crawford looked uncomfortable when the Ukrainian fighter suddenly went all out in the 12th round. Crawford was forced to run.

You look at that fight and think, ‘What would have happened if Postol had put in the same kind of effort in the first eleven rounds as he did in the twelfth?’

Shawn has the experience needed

“What it really means is, a different style against this particular style will great a great fight,” Kenny said. “The other side of it is, this style that that style might make a bad fight.

“In this particular instance, it makes for a great fight. We’ve already gone up against world champion Errol Spence, who is a left-hander.

“Im not concerned about the guy [Crawford] we’re fighting with him fighting left-handed. We’ve already gone up against a big strong fighter [Spence].

“I’m not concerned with this guy [Crawford] being big & strong. Errol Spence is a big strong guy. We’ve already gone up against speed, quickness, and power in Thurman.

“I’m not worried about this guy being speed or quick or powerful. We’ve been there.

“We’ve already been up against a big puncher in Danny Garcia. And we’ve done all these things. So the culmination of all these things, we’ll be prepared for the fight,” said Kenny about Porter being ready for Crawford.

Porter has gone up against Errol Spence, Keith Thurman, and Danny Garcia, so he’s not going to be out of his league fighting Crawford.

He’s not as powerful as either of those three fighters, and he’s not that much faster than Spence and Danny Garcia. The 2016 version of Thurman that Porter fought would have likely knocked Crawford out.

 

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