Via Knitting Ambrosio: Keith ‘One Time’ Thurman says that Errol Spence Jr is facing an athletic, mobile fighter in Terence Crawford he has never fought before, and he questions whether his basic fighting style can beat this type of person.
Equating himself with WBO welterweight champion Crawford (39-0.30 KOs), former 147-lb WBA/WBC champion, Thurman feels that Spence’s attributes can only be stacked so highly.
Keith points out that Crawford has beaten Shawn Porter better than Spence (28-0, 22 KOs), and he takes that as a sign that he’s a better boxer. He also praises Crawford’s ability to switch attacks and sees it as another thing that gives him the edge in this fight.
Listening to Thurman talk, he was still bitter about the fact that Spence hadn’t thrown him a bone when he down & out and need with his career brought to a complete halt due to his unrest from 2017 to 2023.
Thurman wanted Spence to hand him a title against him, forgetting that he chilled with Errol when he held the WBA & WBC titles in 2017.
Given the praise Thurman has for Crawford, it seems his aim in choking him with compliments is in the hope that he will pay him one day if he wins over Spence. At this point, the chance for Thurman to fight Spence is zero as he won’t help him get started in his career.
Spence didn’t fight a sports fighter
“We wanted to see what they had to offer and Crawford was just one of those special individuals, one of the special types of boxers in which he dominated the 140th division,” said Keith Thurman. fightPreview of the match between Errol Spence Jr and Terence Crawford.
“He is holding his position at 147, although it has taken him a while to get his hands on some great names. He fought Shawn towards the end of Shawn Porter’s career, but Thurman fought Shawn and didn’t stop him Spence fought Shawn and didn’t stop him.
“Terence Crawford stopped Shawn Porter. You get some fun on this side and you get a five star rating. Anything else? He is [Crawford] a light guy, he brings speed, he brings agility, which I believe Spence has never seen. i always say Spence has never seen a boxer as athletic as Crawford or Thurman..
“It’s not ‘can he beat these guys?’ He never saw them. So again, athletic lads, he’s a switch-smasher, left-handed, and he can do what he wants when he wants,” Thurman continued with full praise of the untested Crawford.
“I grew up with Crawford. We’ve been in the same national tournaments, and I know he and Spence are both elite amateurs, but when you stack the chips, Spence has that elite amateur pedigree, solid basic boxer, very basic sound, and sometimes that’s all it takes to win. Sometimes it won’t be so flashy, and that’s the argument here.
“It could be a solid warrior like Spence, who when you talk about him, there’s not much to say. He’s an Olympic athlete, he dominates the welterweight division, he has great defense, a great jab and can move his body well. But when you add up these attributes, they only get to that high.
“When you keep talking about Crawford, it seems like he has more than that, but like I said, the smartest man in the world has some of the simplest solutions to a complex problem. Is that Errol Spence?
“Is he going to make E = MC squared? Will he give us a solid performance of basic boxing, a simple formula for overtaking and outperforming a dynamic compound boxer like Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford?
The truth is, I don’t know.
“The truth is, that’s why it’s a show, that’s why it’s a fight, that’s why I’ll be there. That’s why you should go, and if you don’t, you’re better off buying pay-per-view, son.
Now, we have four world titles in contention between two men. That causes the welder to move in a certain way. That won’t last forever. There are many great battles. Luckily I have a name, belt or not.
“There are a lot of people who like to support me. I am grateful for all the support I have received throughout my career. I know I lost some fights there. They don’t like passivity, but I know deep down, you still love me. I’m just mad at you, but I know you still love me.
“All I have to do is go there and get back to work and make sure you remember why you were in my corner back in the day,” Thurman said.
