March 28, 2024

Errol Spence Jnr 25 (21 KOs)-0-0 puts his IBF Welterweight title and undefeated record on the line against WBC title holder Shawn Porter 30 (17 KOs)-2 (0 KOs)-1 in a unification fight at the Staples Centre Los Angeles this Saturday broadcasted on Fox PPV.

Before I started writing this article I was hearing a lot about the betting odds for this fight, not exactly being a gambler myself I’ve just had a quick look online and damn this fight doesn’t seem to exactly be splitting people down the middle. The first link I clicked on had Spence at an 1/8 and Porter at 5/1. I mean, I know Porter is hardly known for his boxing skills but you’d be hard pushed to find another unification with those sort of odds.

However, there is a similarity to one fight I can think of. Being only involved with boxing properly for about 6 years I can hardly go back to that one fight on the York Hall undercard in 1983, but I do see parallels to Crawford Postol in three ways.

The first obviously is that the fight is a unification, simple. The second, is that despite the two of them being world class operators Crawford, from memory, came in as a very heavy favourite. The third, and I believe to be the most important is the reason for this.

The general boxing public didn’t see what Postol did better than Crawford in any way. Postol has a solid jab, Crawford has a better one, Postol isn’t feather fisted, Crawford probably hits harder, Postol can box, Crawford is a master.

Can you see where I’m going with this.

Porter has had significant advantages over every opponent he has faced, be it, Brook with inside work, or Thurman with chin and workrate, but the general public simply sees Spence as an upgraded Porter, a Porter 2.0 if you will.

I’ll be honest before this week and before my typical revision on fighters I was actually picking Porter, because I just thought Porter could outwork Spence and Porter’s boxing skill is slightly underrated, or good enough, or so I thought. But it was Porter Ugas that flipped the switch for me.

Porter has always been wild. A common theme in what I’ve seen is that very often he’ll loop a right hand over the top from a crouch position. He puts so much power into it he very often moves his right foot forward squaring up. He hasn’t really paid for doing this in his career yet, at least consistently, but I think Spence will be the one to do it.

Not only because I think Spence has the skills to wait and time Porter rather than just to evade but also the southpaw stance makes that distance far harder to cut down, and easier for Spence to simply step back and shoot a left or right hook when the time is right.

The Ugas fight showed that if Porter is denied the ability to bully the opponent and forced to box on the backfoot he isn’t that effective. He’s really going to have to beat Spence on work rate is he does it this way, because I don’t see Porter being able to a) close down the range due to Spence’s good boxing skill and southpaw stance and b) bully Spence on the inside since Spence has excellent physicality himself.

The way I see the fight is that both will come out and box initially, because it’s a fight where I truly do think that both fighters believe they have the superior boxing skill. I reckon you’re going to see raiding tactics from Porter, and Spence boxing similar to how we saw him against Garcia. As the fight progresses and Spence nicking most of the rounds Porter is going to throw those bombs more and more, and I just don’t see Spence passing those kind of opportunities up. If he hurts Porter, which I’d be surprised if he didn’t at some point in the fight, I just don’t see the options Porter has from here.

Those body shots and variation on the left hand will bully Porter from the back foot and I can see Kenny Porter throwing in the towel round 10 ish. If Porter does get the win, which I hope he does by the way, I think he’s going to have to fight both very carefully but also very recklessly. He obviously can’t throw caution to the wind and go in swinging crazy haymakers from round 1, but he’s going to have to swing a few. Be very sharp on the counter, and get Spence backing up but also make him wary to throw to get himself out of trouble, he’s got to essentially do what Spence does to most of his opponents.

Nothing would make me happier than seeing Porter get the win here, because he is one of my favourite fighters to watch in the ring and personality outside the ring. A real rugged style with next to zero clinching, with a softly spoken demeanour and a relentless work ethic. So, I really hope I am wrong but like the rest of the boxing public I just don’t think we’ll be seeing fans cry out for Crawford Porter any time soon.

On the undercard Anthony Dirrell 33 (24 KOs)-1 (0 KOs)-1 defends his WBC Super-Middleweight title against highly touted David Benavidez 21 (18 KOs)-0-0 and Josesito Lopez 36 (19 KOs)-8 (3 KOs)-0 faces off against John Molina Jnr 30 (24 KOs)-8 (3 KOs)-0 in what surely will end up being an entertaining fight at Welterweight.