By Allan Fox: Antonio Tarver says Terence Crawford must get Errol Spence Jr’s respect early because he won’t win this fight on July 29th without hurting him in their contest on Showtime PPV at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Tarver feels that Crawford (39-0, 30 KOs) has got to make IBF/WBA/WBC welterweight champion Spence (28-0, 22 KOs) cautious about making him hesitant to want to go on the attack like he normally does.
Crawford isn’t rugged enough to get in the trenches with Spence and trade shots back & forth for twelve rounds. That would be a disaster for Crawford. But if he can get Spence’s attention with a few well-aimed punches, he could scare him off.
We saw the much smaller former featherweight champion Mikey Garcia make Spence afraid to go on the attack in their fight in 2019.
Mikey nailed Spence early with a counter right hand that he didn’t see coming, and from that point on, Errol chose to stay on the outside and box. What was surprising about that fight was how good Spence’s technical boxing skills were.
Of course, he was fighting a guy much smaller than him, enabling Spence to use his height and reach to dominate Mikey from the outside.
If Crawford can get Spence to give up on turning the contest into a war, he’ll be playing into his hands by trying to box as he did against Mikey.
Spence is an excellent boxer, but he’s NOT on the same level as Crawford, and he’d be foolish to try and outbox him. If Spence fears being countered by Crawford, he won’t take chances.
“Well, if Crawford can’t hurt Spence in this fight, he has no way to win. I believe I think he has to hurt Spence to get his respect and make him cautious a little bit by pushing on that gas and just coming, you know, coming with no regard,” said Antonio Tarver to Fight Hub TV about his thoughts on the Spence vs. Crawford bout.
It’s not easy to hurt Spence, and it could be risky on Crawford’s part if he starts loading up on power shots early, trying to hurt him.
“So it’s important that Crawford gets his respect early in that fight, and you know you got to do that anyway,” said Tarver. “You got to clip that guy with a shot he doesn’t see to let him know he can get hazardous in here real quick. You know what I mean? If you don’t put that in your opponent’s head anyway, then you ain’t doing what you’re supposed to do.
“So in that first two or three rounds, you must find a way to crack your opponent. That’s mandated. You have to do that to slow the fight down anyway because if you don’t get your respect, the guy will run over you anyway. That’s that that goes without saying,” said Tarver.
