No matter how loudly his punches sound when he hits the heavy bag and no matter how ironclad his will appears to be, Errol Spence Jr. has been warned that his upcoming showdown against Terence Crawford will come down to one thing and one thing only, his ability to take away Crawford’s counterpunching.
Time and time again, the WBO welterweight titlist has slyly evaded an incoming punch just in the nick of time, only to let off his own string of pernicious shots. While small, Crawford has taken advantage of those minuet openings essentially every time he’s stepped foot in the ring.
For Spence, however, he doesn’t appear unnerved by one of Crawford’s biggest attributes. Having faced one of the welterweight division’s premier threats in that department, Spence points to the night when he made the counterpunching ability of Danny Garcia a moot point.
“Danny Garcia the best counterpuncher in the world,” said Spence to FightHype.com recently. “He got highlight reel knockouts counterpunching, especially with his left hook and I canceled that out so I’m not too much worried about it.”
Fresh off a life-threatening car accident, Spence (28-0, 22 KOs) decided against taking a soft touch in his first appearance of 2020. With Garcia’s ability to make his opponents miss and subsequently pay well highlighted, Spence zoned in on his counterpunching attributes. What followed was a wide unanimous decision victory in Spence’s favor.
Still, it isn’t just his experience with Garcia that Spence is banking on. Considering his eclectic resume, both in the paid ranks and as a youngster growing up, Spence believes that he’s seen Crawford’s style on countless occasions and has performed nicely each and every time.
“I got a long, long amateur, pro pedigree where I fought a lot of guys who were great counterpunchers so that never stopped me before.”