By Kevin McCaskill Jr.
Errol Spence Jr. convincingly beat Danny Garcia on Saturday night, 12/5/20, to retain his WBC and IBF welterweight title belts. This was Spence Jr.’s first fight after a scary car accident, that caused Spence Jr. a hospital stay and serious questions about his potentially lucrative future boxing career.
Any questions about Spence Jr. were “thrown out the window”, per se. He looked agile. He moved fluidly in the ring. He wasn’t flat-footed or off-balance. He looked fast, both with his feet and hands. His right jab and other right handed punches made Garcia’s left eye almost close by swelling. Also, his demeanor and attitude leading up to the fight were those of a focused and healthy champion.
Before the main event began, the PBC broadcast would go to shots of the boxers in their locker rooms. When the shot went to Garcia’s locker room, Garcia had an odd look in eyes. His eyes seemed puffy and red. I’m not making any inferences about Garcia’s mind state, just an observation.
The tweet above was after the 3rd Round. I didn’t think Garcia was going to be able to last any longer. I had him losing the first three rounds and it didn’t look like he was going to climb back in the fight. He came back out in the 4th Round and stood toe-to-toe with Spence Jr. and landed bigger punches in that round. Not only did Garcia stand tall in that round, he lasted the entire fight. That shows the heart of Garcia and it also shows the good training he and his camp have done in his career. Garcia handled the post-fight press conference with class and professionalism, as well.
The only criticism I have of this fight is that Spence Jr. should have knocked out Garcia or at the least knocked him down once or twice.
From what I saw in the fight, Spence Jr. isn’t generating enough power in his power left hook. He caught Garcia a couple times flush with his left hook and no knockout. He also hit Garcia with the hook multiple times with Garcia’s right arm up fully or slightly up. Even those punches, with more power, should have put Garcia on the canvas at least once. Spence may also feel this way, without saying it how I did, by sending out this tweet:
I will give respect to Shawn Porter, especially his self-promotion skills. The only fight most of the “boxing community” wants to see is Spence Jr. vs. Terrence “Bud” Crawford.
The issue is Spence Jr. fights under the Al Haymon-owned PBC brand and Crawford fights under the Bob Arum-owned Top Rank brand. PBC is associated currently with FOX; Top Rank is currently associated with ESPN. Top Rank/ESPN air many of their fights for free on ESPN, even larger fights i.e the upset by Teofimo Lopez over Lomachenko. PBC airs fights on FOX, the network channel, however most, if not all, of their big fights are on pay-per-view.
Will Arum and Haymon make a deal that gives both brands what they want? Will Arum and Haymon make a deal that gives the “boxing community” a fight we all actually want, while the two fighters are in their prime and ascending?
The fight obviously has to be on PPV. If that makes the deal harder for ESPN to sign off for, it shouldn’t. ESPN airs PPV MMA matches on ESPN+ regularly.
This fight can be made. I think it will be made for 2022 when more people should be able to be in arenas.
Until then, maybe Shawn Porter does get his shot against Crawford 🤷🏽♂️.