By Sean Jones: Roy Jones Jr says if a knockout happens tonight, it’ll be late for the pressure fighter Errol Spence Jr or early if it’s Terence Crawford for their welterweight undisputed clash on Showtime PPV.
Jones Jr says Spence (28-0, 22 KOs) slowly wears his opponents down, round after round, until finally taking them out in the later part of the fight.
Will Crawford knockout Spence early?
Interestingly, Roy views Crawford (39-0, 30 KOs) as a threat to score an early knockout of Spence, and that doesn’t seem too likely. Crawford doesn’t possess Julian Jackson-type power.
He’s more of a sneaky puncher who has decent power but is below other welterweights like Jaron Ennis, Spence, Eimantas, Stanionis, Roiman Villa, Egidijus Kavaliauskas and David Avanesyan.
Crawford’s knockouts are the product of his boxing ability and the weak opposition he’s been facing since 2008.
As such, he’s not going to knock out Spence early, so he should forget about that and focus on just trying to win a 12-round decision and hope he doesn’t get worn down.
Jones Jr is right about Spence’s best hope for a knockout would be late in the fight because he’s not fast or powerful enough to stop Crawford early.
If Spence had the extraordinary power of a middleweight, Crawford would be in danger of getting stopped in the first six rounds, but he’s not that kind of a puncher and never will be.
“If Errol wins by knockout, it’ll be late, in my opinion, and Terence can win early because he’s a different type of fighter. He’s explosive,” said Roy Jones Jr to Fighthype about his thoughts on tonight’s fight between Errol Spence Jr and Terence Crawford.
“Errol is a pressure fighter, which means you start now, and it benefits you later. Don’t expect a pressure fighter to get an early knockout, but later he could, but not early.
“Errol has to pressure him early, dig to the body early to wear so that his pressure can be effective late. Terence has got to get an early jump on Errol, try to outbox him, and cut him up early so he won’t be good to pressure late.
“The winner of this fight is the best pound-for-pound, but Inoue isn’t far behind them. I don’t think so,” said Roy when asked if Spence vs. Crawford will go the distance.
Andre Ward predicts a knockout for Spence vs. Crawford
“It’s hard for me to see this fight go twelve. There’s going to be a lot of punishment inflicted in this fight because when Errol says he’s going to step in from the first round, meaning he’s going to bring it, I believe him,” said Andre Ward to Fighthype on the Spence vs. Craword contest tonight.
“I’ve seen him do it and watched him throughout his career. That’s how he trains; that’s how he moves. I don’t think he’s going to switch up in the biggest moment of his life, and what I know about Bud. He’s not going to back down.
“Bud may have a strategy about how he does it, but Bud has got the killer instinct. Errol Spence has the killer instinct, and the world is watching.
“The whole world is going to stand still to watch these two men fight, and nobody is going to want to give an inch, and nobody knows how the judges are scoring it, and because of that, it’s going to be a lot of punishment inflicted in this fight, and they’re going to get a king’s ransom for it.
“This is what we signed up for. We know what we signed up for, and I can’t wait. I don’t know about this one. I don’t know,” said Ward when told, ‘ All big fights go the distance.’
