Keith Thurman says Terence Crawford beat a depleted, wrecked version of Errol Spence Jr. last year, and he is not the fighter he had once been.
Thurman doesn’t want to take credit from the Nebraska native Crawford’s victory, but he feels he’s telling it like it is by pointing out that.
Should there be an Asterisk?
The real question is, should there be an asterisk next to Crawford’s win over Errol in the record books to indicate that he fought him after the car crash?
IBF/WBA/WBC welterweight champion Spence (28-1, 22 KOs) looked null & void on that night, and Keith could see it from the moment he made his ringwalk. Spence, 33, looked like a doomed man, heading towards a walking guillotine, Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs).
It was obvious to fans that Spence didn’t look or sound right in the weeks before his fight against Crawford last July. His slow speech and movements made fans question whether he was physically & mentally ready to battle Crawford for the undisputed.
Spence Didn’t Look Right
“We didn’t see the same champion. Errol Spence, there’s a different fighter from before the [2019 car] accident and post-accident,” said Keith Thurman to Fighthype, pointing out that Errol Spence Jr. wasn’t the same fighter after his 100 mph car crash in 2019, which reduced his high-priced Ferrari Spyder to mangled aluminum and metal.
The real clincher that Spence wasn’t in top form is how easily Crawford handled him. This was the same Crawford that had struggled against the lesser fighters Shawn Porter, David Avanesyan, and Egidijus Kavaliauskas.
For Crawford suddenly to look like an invincible world-beater against Spence, it was obvious that Errol wasn’t the same fighter he’d been.
“If I had listened to Spence talking before the [Crawford] fight, I would have noticed that he didn’t have that flame,” said Thurman.
Errol Looked Doomed during Ringwalk
“In the ringwalk before one punch was thrown, the fight was over,” Thurman said about the Crawford vs. Spence clash last July. “One [Errol] looked like he was about to walk out into the abyss, and the other one [Crawford] looked like he was about to become the undisputed champion of the world.
“The way Spence walked out, I did not see joy; I did not see anticipation in his eyes. I saw more excitement from his trainer than I did from the fighter,” said Thurman.
