By Allan Fox: Shawn Porter says he would put “a lot of money” and his life on Terence Crawford beating Errol Spence Jr in their fight on July 29th.
Porter has been picking Crawford over Spence for a while now, so it’s not a surprise that he still feels that he’ll win.
The former IBF/WBC welterweight champion Porter has lost to both fighters during his career, but his tenth round knockout defeat against Crawford in 2021 seems to have left more of an imprint on his mind than the twelve round lambasting that Spence (28-0, 22 KOs) put on him in 2019, which left him a shell of his former self.
Spence took a far different approach to his fight with Porter than Crawford, as he purposefully chose to stand in the pocket and brawl with him. Porter took a terrible beating from Spence and was never the same fighter afterward.
When Crawford got around to fighting Porter in 2021, he faced an arguably badly eroded version of the brawler. Crawford chose to box Porter and didn’t stand in the pocket going to war with him because that’s not his style.
Instead, Crawford played it safe, staying out of range and not taking any chances. As a result, the fight was boring to watch and not nearly as entertaining as Spence’s victory over Porter.
“Somebody texted me the other day, and I said, ‘Yeah, I feel the same way.’ If I had to bet my life on it, if I had to put money on it, a lot of money on it, I’d put my money on Terence Crawford,” said Shawn Porter on his podcast, picking Bud over Errol Spence Jr on July 29th.
Terence Crawford: “I don’t think I’m in his head. I just think it’s been a long time coming. I’ve been calling for the fight and asking for the fight, and for whatever reason, it didn’t happen,” said Crawford to Showtime Sports about him finally getting the Spence fight.
“He took the bait, and now, July 29th, we got the fight, and I’m going to get him to the bank.”
It’s going to be interesting to see how Crawford chooses to fight Spence on July 29th because, with the way that Terence is talking, he sounds like he wants to plant his feet and throw down.
That would be risky for Crawford to do because the last time he tried fighting like that, he got dropped and badly hurt by Egidijus Kavaliauskas. Crawford isn’t built to fight Spence’s type of fight, and he’s too old at 36 to start.
Errol Spence: “I feel like I’m the Apex, and he’s definitely going to come to fight. He’s going to try to put on a great performance, but I know I’m just a better fighter overall.
“I know I’m going to break him. He says he’s going to reel me in and bring me to the bank. So we’re going to see. I don’t think he can reel me in. I don’t think nobody got a big enough fishing pole.
“I never had to study film on Shawn Porter and Danny Garcia because I watched their fights all the time. I was already familiar with them and what they do. so
“All his [Crawford] fights were great fights, and he showed a lot, even with Gamboa, he showed a lot of determination because you see when the fighter gets hurt, you see how they react.
“He reacts in the craziest way. I don’t see any faults in that because you got fighters who get hurt and they get timid. They’re more scared and not as active as they used to be. But with him, he gets meaner when you get him hurt.”
