By Chris Williams: Danny Garcia is picking unified welterweight champion Errol ‘The Truth’ Spence to defeat WBO belt-holder Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford when the two are expected to fight later this year,
The former two-division world champion Danny (36-3, 21 KOs) shared the ring with Spence in his last fight in December 2020, losing a 12-round unanimous decision by the scores 117-11, 116-112, and 116-112.
Garcia says he originally had the Spence-Crawford fight as a “50-50” one, but he now believes Spence will win because he feels he’s too strong and has a better work rate.
Like Canelo Alvarez, Crawford is a counter puncher with a low work rate who specializes on countering his opponents. When Crawford is on the attack, he throws one shot at a time like Canelo and loads up.
Where Crawford differentiates from Canelo is that he’ll get on his bike when he’s dealing with pressure, and he’ll make it ugly by running. That style probably won’t work against Spence because he has the arm length, power jab, and the ability to cut off the ring on Crawford.
“In the beginning, it was 50-50, but now for some reason, I’m leaning more towards Spence,” said Danny Garcia to Fighthype, predicting Errol Spence Jr. will defeat Terence Crawford.
“I feel like he’s going to be too strong, and his work rate,” said Danny about why he’s picking Spence over Crawford.
We haven’t seen Crawford in a dog fight against a puncher that consistently checks his chin. We did see Crawford get dropped by Egidijus Kavaliauskas in 2019, and he was marked up by Kell Brook in 2020.
For the most part, Crawford has fought old guys since moving up to welterweight in 2020, and he’s yet to fight his first quality opponent. Shawn Porter was all beat up and shot by the time Crawford fought him last November.
Of course, Porter had already lost to Spence, and was arguably beaten by Yordenis Ugas in what many boxing fans felt was a terrible robbery in 2019.
“The only thing he can’t do is get caught because if he gets caught a little bit, he’ll be shaky,” said Danny about Spence.
“But other than that, he’s going to beat him. Crawford throws the shorter punches. That’s why his punches are harder. Spence’s are a little bit wider. He [Crawford] throws the shorter punches, and that’s why they have the effect.
“Spence throws a little wide, but he breaks you down. He’s #1, so a lot of guys feed into that, but I look at the styles,” said Danny when asked why so many boxing fans are leaning towards Crawford to defeat Spence.
