By Adam Baskin: Errol Spence Jr had fun devaluing Terence Crawford’s best wins of his 15-year pro career, saying that Kell Brook was “broken” and Shawn Porter didn’t train hard and already had a foot out the door in retirement.
There’s no arguing that Brook wasn’t a shell of the fighter he’d once been when Crawford fought him. It’s still an excellent accomplishment for Crawford to have stopped Brook in the fourth round of their fight in 2020, but he shouldn’t kid himself. This wasn’t a prime Brook or anything close to that.
Let’s face it, Brook was totally shot when he fought Crawford, and he was likely just looking for a payday.
The fact that Top Rank dug Brook up to throw him in with Crawford is deeply troubling because this guy had done nothing to deserve aa title shot unless you consider getting stopped twice in recent fights as earning a title shot.
Crawford’s best career wins:
- Ricky Burns
- Viktor Postol
- John Molina
- Thomas Dulorme
- Egidijus Kavaliauskas
- Ray Beltran
The former IBF welterweight champion Brook had been viciously bludgeoned into submission by Gennadiy Golovkin in 2016, a fight in which he suffered an eye injury.
The next year, Spence stopped Brook, and the British fighter suffered another eye injury. This time to a different eye.
“There are a lot of comparisons of how he did with Shawn Porter, how he did with Kell Brook, and all these different guys,” said Errol Spence to the media on Tuesday about how he and Terence Crawford dealt with Brook & Porter.
“Kell Brook was already basically broken, and just basically looking for a payday. When I fought those guys, they all had titles when I fought them. Shawn Porter was a world champion. Kell Brook was a world champion.
“So I fought them at their best. It’s a lot harder to stop a guy with a world title and a guy who has everything to lose,” said Spence.
It’s got to be hard for Crawford for Spence to discredit his best two career wins, because, without those two names, he has nothing to validate his 15 years in the game. Yeah, Crawford beat Amir Khan, but that guy was more shot than Brook and was never any good in the first place.
“Yeah,” said Spence when asked if the version of Shawn Porter he fought in 2019 would have beaten Crawford. “Well, if he wouldn’t beat him, he would have definitely gave him a better fight.
“When do we see when do you see Shawn Porter gas out? That’s a serious question. When did you see Shawn Porter get tired?
“You don’t see Shawn Porter like that. He’s known for his nutrition and how he come in a fight. He didn’t fade. He was trying to fight. He was still trying to fight, still throwing punches.
“You never see Shawn Porter fade out like he did with Terence late. Then he come out and said in an interview he was like he wasn’t doing the things that his daddy told him to do,” said Spence.
Porter had backed off from fighting quality opposition after his grueling loss to Spence in 2019. After that fight, Porter fought bottom dweller Sebastian Formella in 2020, and he looked like he didn’t have his heart in the sport anymore.
