Errol Spence wants a rematch with Terence Crawford and he wants it this year. This is what the badly beaten Spence said not long after his ninth round stoppage loss to “better man on the night” Crawford. Who knows, Spence, a smart enough guy, may well have changed his mind after watching the fight on tape, with him seeing how so utterly one-sided the action really was.
Then again, fighters are always the last to know when it’s over and, as premature as some fans will no doubt think it is to say a guy who has just suffered his first loss should be considering retirement, some people do feel this way. Stephen A. Smith, speaking with Teddy Atlas on First Take, is one such person. Smith spoke of how shocking it was seeing Spence get “beat up” by Crawford, with Smith saying it’s rare to see such a top-level fighter take such a beating. Smith said Saturday’s fight made him think about George Foreman hammering Joe Frazier, about Floyd Mayweather hammering Arturo Gatti, about Felix Trinidad hammering William Joppy.
Smith, with Atlas nodding his agreement, suggested that Spence should consider retirement or at least take a year off before fighting again. And Smith added how he has taken into account the damage Spence suffered in his two car smashes – “the way it shattered his jaw, his teeth, the concussions, the retina; because he had a detached retina when he was training for Manny Pacquiao.”
“I said he should consider retirement after what happened to him Saturday night, and you (Teddy) countered by saying, ‘you’re right, but if not that, at least not allow him to box for the next year,” Smith said.
Atlas then broke down how damaging the beating Spence took really was and how much he feels it will have taken out of him.
“Spence left the ring with a lot less of himself, that he’ll never get back. That’s a fact,” Atlas said passionately. “The human point, the sportsman point, the responsible point, a 100 percent – he will never get that back. Nobody wants to take away someone’s career, but the reality is, sometimes you do have to think down that road. I wouldn’t let him get near a ring……here’s what throws people off: it wasn’t one of those, ‘bang, lights out’ knockouts. No, it was worse. The accumulative damage that was done round after round…..it would have been one thousand times better if he’d got caught flush, one punch, laid out. But he got damaged more and now there’s more of a risk of future problems down the road.”
Smith signed off by saying he is “begging” Spence not to fight for a year, adding how he doesn’t want Spence to “become Meldrick Taylor.”
“We saw what happened to him after that Julio Cesar Chavez loss, which he should have won,” Smith said of the badly damaged Taylor.
Is this going too far, or are Smith and Atlas bang on the money? It’s the hurt business of course and it’s up to Spence and his team what he does next. But plenty of people were sufficiently shocked and disturbed by the beating they witnessed on Saturday in Vegas to feel strongly how Errol Spence should take a year, or maybe even call it a career.
What do YOU guys think?