By Chris Williams: Shawn Porter is having a hard time understanding what happened to him in his tenth round knockout loss to WBO welterweight champion Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford last weekend.
A day after his loss, Porter (31-4-1, 17 KOs) was still trying to determine where he went wrong in getting dropped twice by the Omaha, Nebraska native Crawford (38-0, 29 KOs) at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.
Porter should have dumped Kenny BEFORE the fight
There were mistakes that Porter made, and it’s easy to spot them, such as using his dad Kenny Porter as his trainer rather than one of the well-known coaches.
Kenny seemed to overreact after watching Porter get dropped twice by Crawford in the tenth. Rather than keep his head and bark instructions to his son, Kenny jumped up and stopped the fight, which was a bizarre move.
The 34-year-old Porter looked like a fighter, unable to grasp how overmatched he was. This was a fight that Porter NEVER was going to win, so it shouldn’t be a shock to him that he was beaten.
The only surprising thing is that it took Crawford so long to take the aging fighter out, which is a clear sign that Terence is getting old too.
Porter to ask Crawford if he can be broken
“He’s got that IT, he’s got that thing. We’ve always known that about Terence,” said Shawn Porter to Fighthype last Sunday in reflecting on his tenth round knockout loss to Terence Crawford.
“He makes the right moves, does the right things, and he stays so comfortable and so confident of who he is and what he does to a fighter,” continued Porter in seemingly drooling over Crawford with his praise.
“You got to break that. I thought I was going to break that, but I did not do what was necessary to break it, but I’m really wondering if I could have broken it. I’m going to be doing live on the Podcast, and I’m going to see if I can get him [Crawford] on.
“I’m going to ask him, ‘Can you be broken?'” said Porter in what he plans on asking Crawford on his Porter Way Podcast. “He’s literally GOOD! I’ve been in the ring with guys like that where you can’t catch your rhythm.
Shawn wishes Spence was still the same guy
“You only get one night against the best, and right now, he [Crawford] is the best. I don’t want to make a prediction over him and Errol Spence Jr. I wish Errol Spence had never been in the accident, and I wish Errol Spence had never had an eye injury.
“And I just think it’s dogged down. I saw a Derrick James interview where he said, ‘Terence Crawford is fighting a lesser Shawn Porter after Shawn Porter fought Errol Spennce Jr.’ I didn’t agree with that, and I don’t want to take anything from Terence Crawford in terms of he’s getting ‘Seconds’ [i.e., Spence’s leftovers].
“Both my feet were in the door, both my feet were ready to take this fight, and on the night, he [Crawford] was better than me, just a little bit better. It’s not always physical with this game; people don’t know that. With Terence, it’s all mental,” Porter said.
It’s a waste of time for Porter to wish that Spence were the same fighter he once was because he’s not going to be that guy he was 1000+ yesterdays ago.
The sum total of what Spence has gone through with his terrible car crash in October 2019, weight problems, and eye injury, he’s not the same guy he once was.
Crawford took it to another level
“You could see he would counter my jab, and he would try to counter me with a hook, and I was rolling over the hook,” said Porter of Crawford.
“He caught me with a couple of good uppercuts, a couple of good moves. He tried to come with a crazy left hook from the southpaw side, so you could see he was thinking too and trying things too.
“We both went to another level, but I’m not even going to front like this dude went this much. He went to another level. I’m not going to compare how high he went to me, but he went to another level.
“I wish I had gotten there and was able to go 12 rounds with that man and take this to a decision. I heard the scorecards were close. Yeah, that’s one that you want back,” ‘Showtime’ Shawn said.
Crawford didn’t do much other than wait until Porter got tired in the 10th before going for the Coup de Grace.
It’s the same thing we saw in Crawford’s losses to Keith Thurman, Errol pence Jr., and Kell Brook. Porter fought well early, then got tired in the championship rounds and was dominated.
In Porter’s controversial win over Yordenis Ugas in March 2019, he was dominated the entire 12 rounds, winning one of the worst decisions this writer has ever seen.
Ugas appeared to win 11 rounds to 1 against Porter, showing that was over-the-hill even back then.
Porter filled with regrets
“For me, it was,” said Porter when told that his fight with Crawford was the equivalent of ‘High-speed chess.’ “I hope that everybody watching understood what they were seeing, that both guys were in there trying not to make mistakes.
“There’s still a lot of things I didn’t do,” said Porter. “I wanted this to be my last fight, and I said this in the post-fight interview. I wanted Errol Spence Jr. to be my last fight.
“I’m still a fighter, but I’m going to do it in a different way. I got plans, and all those plans will come to fruition, and I expect to live a fun, fruitful, and very successful life,” said Porter on his retirement dreams/hopes.
It came down to Porter lacking in all these areas that needed for him to beat Crawford:
1. Power
2. Youth
3. Stamina
4. Ring IQ
5. Height
6. Reach
7. Chin
In watching the fight, it was evident that Crawford is now beatable and ready to be taken down by the young lions, Jaron Ennis and Vergil Ortiz Jr.
Porter shouldn’t beat himself up too much about his loss to Crawford, as he was never going to win this fight. It’s not as if Porter hadn’t already been exposed in losses to Kell Brook, Keith Thurman, and Errol Spence Jr.
Those guys all beat Porter, and Yordenis Ugas arguably robbed royally in his fight with Shawn, and Ugas looked better against Porter than Crawford did.
Two destroyers on a trajectory path with Crawford
If a washed 34-year-old Porter was able to fight Crawford to a standstill through nine rounds, that’s a clear indication that the Nebraska native is slipping and no longer capable of holding off the young lions ‘Boots’ Ennis and Vergil.
Now it’s just a matter of how long the World Boxing Organization will wait before they order Crawford to defend against Vergil Jr or Ennis.
Given that Porter was Crawford’s WBO mandatory, it means that the aging Omaha native won’t have to worry about fighting one of those talents until likely 2024, which means he’s virtually guaranteed to hold onto his strap for a bit longer.
Ennis and Ortiz are the equivalents of a six-mile-wide killer asteroid hurtling through space heading directly towards Crawford. Like the asteroid that finished the dinosaurs 66 million years ago, Ennis and Ortiz are heading directly towards Crawford.
There’s nothing that can be done to stop them. They’re going to get there eventually, and Crawford is going to be in bad shape once they impact on him.
In some respects, Crawford would be better off fighting Ennis or Vergil Ortiz Jr. now while he has a little bit of youth left, but that wouldn’t be a good idea because he’ll likely lose.
You can argue that Crawford is better off avoiding Boots and Ortiz Jr. until he’s literally forced to by the WBO, and even then, he might be better off vacating his title to avoid the cataclysmic event that would result from him taking either of those fights.