By Allan Fox: Danny Garcia believes the rematch could be different if Errol Spence Jr’s recent loss to Terence Crawford was because he was weight-drained last July.
If Spence is at full strength at the higher weight of 154, we could see a different fight between him and Crawford.
Spence has activated the rematch clause in the contract, so he’ll have a second chance to get things right. What’s important for Spence is to get the weight right because he looked like he’d taken off a ton of pounds in a short period.
Many people believe that Spence (28-1, 22 KOs) looked like a spaced-out, drained, dazed-looking, zombie-like figure on the night of his fight against WBO welterweight champion Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs).
Indeed, Spence looked so depleted and zoned out that even the bottom feeders at 147 & 140 would have beaten him on the night. He looked like a dead man walking and not fit to be inside the ring in an athletic event, particularly one that required strenuous effort like boxing.
You hate to discredit the best win of Crawford’s fifteen-year professional career by pointing out the obvious about Spence looking like he’d been at Andersonville for a good year, but that was the reality.
The victory for Crawford was a hallow one, given the poor physical condition Spence was in on the night. He looked like he could have used a good meal.
Reasons for Spence’s loss
- Two car accidents
- Weight drained
- Inactivity
- Wars with Shawn Porter, Danny Garcia, and Yordenis Ugas
- Sparring a lot of rounds
Spence’s loss to Crawford from “Domino effect”
“I have mixed emotions about the fight just because both of them are mentally strong, both of them are on top of the game basically but going into the fight, I thought it was a 50-50 fight for that reason,” said Danny Garcia to Fight Hub TV about the Errol Spence Jr. vs. Terence Crawford match last July.
“I think what happened was like a down like a domino effect. Spence had the car accident, and then he trained, sparred, and fought me. A lot of people don’t know, but you really don’t take a lot of punishment in the fight,” said Danny.
It was a bad mix of things that contributed to his loss to Crawford. It wasn’t just one thing, but the weight was perhaps the single most important factor.
“You take a lot of punishment during training. That’s where you take the most of the punishment,” said Garcia. “Sparring ten rounds, probably 20 rounds a week, maybe for eight to ten weeks long. So, I feel like it was more of a domino effect for him.
“The car accident, training for me, fighting me, then training for Ugas, another hard training camp. He [Spence] was really supposed to fight PacMan first. I know he was training for him, and then he was training for you guys for Ugas, then he fought Ugas. He had like another 15-month layoff. I heard he got another car accident.”
We saw the withered, half-starved look that Spence had for his previous fight against Yordenis Ugas in April 2022. That should have been a signal to Spence that he needed to move up to 154, preferably 160 because he’d been at 147 for too many years.
He’d started his career at welterweight in 2012 and should have moved up to 154 in 2018 because he already starting to look depleted & malnourished at the weigh-ins.
“I think it was just the domino effect with the punishment of the car accident, to be honest with you. It finally caught up to him, and he’s been at that weight [147] for a long time,” said Garcia. “So I think it’s all of that, but I don’t take nothing away from Crawford.
“He was definitely the better man that night, and it would have taken another special fighter to beat him that night because everything he did was perfect that night,” Danny said about Spence.
Errol not the same fighter
“I don’t think he’s the same fighter that fought Lamont Peterson and Chris Algieri,” said Garcia about Spence’s fights from 2016 to 2018. “I think when we fought, it was more like I felt like I wasn’t myself, and I don’t think he was really himself either because what I can remember from the fight was I knew I wasn’t at my best.”
Obviously, Spence wasn’t the same fighter he’d been against Algieri & Peterson. He’d been at 147 too many years. During the same amount of time, Crawford moved up three weight classes.
“Like I knew my vision was foggy, was blurry, like I just wasn’t there for whatever reason,” said Danny. “My brain wasn’t just sharp, and I remember like I was hitting him. Every time I threw punches, I would hit him, and that surprised me.
“I’m not going to say easy, but I was hitting him with some good punches. Every time I let my hands go, I would land punches because if you look at the CompuBox numbers, we landed the same amount of power punches.
“We both landed 103 power punches, and I hurt him a few times in there but for whatever reason, I just couldn’t finish him. I didn’t have that extra burst, and I knew that in the Ugas fight, Ugas hurt with that uppercut. I knew if Crawford smells blood, he’s going to put them together. That’s what he’s known for.
“So I knew that would be a big key in a fight is if he hurts Spence, that he’s going to put them together, he’s going to finish him. I saw the fight going two ways. Spence being the bigger man, using his jab, backing him up, out-working him, and beating him.
“Then I saw it the other way. Terence Crawford, having more skill, out-boxing him and winning the decision. I didn’t think it was going to be one-sided like that,” said Garcia.
Spence can better in rematch
“No, that could be a difference. Maybe it was the weight, maybe it was something else that he’s not talking about,” said Garcia when asked if Spence would be better at 154 in the rematch with Crawford.
“Some fighters don’t like to make excuses, even though I could have made a lot of excuses in my career, but I never did. But some fighters just don’t like making excuses and maybe something did bother him [Spence] and maybe he just had a bad night.
“A lot of fighters have bad nights, and that was just the night that he happened to have a bad night because every fighter has a bad night. Sometimes you can win on your bad nights, and sometimes you lose one-sided.
“So that’s just how boxing is. That’s why I did an interview before on the fight. I said whoever wakes up feeling better on that fight, he’s going win that fight, and Terence Crawford woke up feeling better and looked better.
“He was energized and looked like he was there. Errol Spence looked like he was a little spaced, he was a little tired, and sometimes, the magnitude of those fights could burn you out mentally.
“Well, I want to say that one fight. It’s a lead-up. You got to understand before that fight, Spence had the bigger fights; he was the bigger star.
“So he had more pressure going into that fight. He’s already fought Mikey Garcia, Shawn Porter, the Kell Brook when he went over there [the UK]. That’s a lot of pressure already.
“It’s only so long your brain can take that type of pressure, and as for Crawford, he was ever in those bigger fights like that, like that type of magnitude. So he was more fresher, and he was more hungrier for that opportunity, I would think.
“I probably have to go with Crawford because of how good he looked, but he is going up to a higher weight class, and remember he started at 135,” said Danny when asked for a prediction on the Crawford vs. Spence rematch, even though he walks around like.
“Most guys who fight walk around 175, 180 pounds anyway. He’s [Crawford] the smaller guy but they really just shrink him down to get to that weight. That’s what a lot of people don’t understand. People don’t know that these fighters. Crawford and Spence probably both walk around 185, 190 pounds.
“The only reason why they said you’re smaller is because you never fought at the weight, but if you do it right, it shouldn’t affect you. I felt great when I was doing 54, and I just felt like a new man. So it just depends on how you do it,” said Garcia.
