Terence Crawford believes the combination of overall skills and ring IQ that he possesses will be more than enough for him to defeat unified welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr on July 29th on Showtime PPV.
WBO welterweight champion Crawford (39-0, 30 KOs) met with IBF/WBA/WBC champ Spence (28-0, 22 KOs) on Tuesday for their kick-off press conference for next month’s headliner at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Crawford got the opportunity to see Spence face-to-face to size him up and let him know what he’s going to be declining with on July 29th.
Spence has seen it and heard it all before, so he wasn’t phased in the least by Crawford’s self-promotion and dire prediction for him.
Crawford is going to have to back up his tough talk in this fight. Otherwise, he’ll be just like the 28 previous opponents that have faced Spence and lost.
Errol has been out of the ring since last year in April and will be coming off a 15-month layoff when he gets in the ring with Crawford.
That’s obviously not ideal for someone that is facing a talent like Crawford, but Spence doesn’t see it as a problem. We’ll see if that’s the case.
Spence will make adjustments
“I think everything is a key point in the fight. You got my jab; you got my movement, you got my counter-punching ability, and you got my brain with the way I think. Just all around,” said Terence Crawford to the media today during the kick-off press conference for his fight with Errol Spence Jr on July 29th.
“I can’t really compare Errol to Josh Taylor. I think it’s two different styles, so I wouldn’t use that as a blueprint,” said Crawford when asked if Spence would fight in a similar way to Josh Taylor in his clash last weekend against Teofimo Lopez.
“I feel as if Errol will make more adjustments along the way, and he wouldn’t just fight the same fight the whole fight. I expect him to be making adjustments along the way, and he’s a great professional.
“Look, all that matters is he weighs in at 147 come Friday, and that’s all that matters is that we’re going to be the same weight come weigh-ins. So what he weighs now doesn’t really doesn’t matter,” said Terence when asked is Spence’s huge size today could be a problem for him when it comes to cutting weight.
“I’m just excited and ready to get back to camp and get back to work. We’ve been having a great start to camp, and come July 29th, everything will show.
“Well, emotionally, that just showed me what I already knew; that my city and my people, they behind me and they support me, and that’s all that showed me, and I want to give them a little gift of being able to send me off and wish me well,” said Crawford about his fans in Omaha, Nebraska recently showing up during a recent event in that city.
Crawford ready to prove doubters wrong
“No, we were just letting each other know that it’s time,” Crawford said. “We’re here now, and there’s no more talk, there’s no more wrong side of the street, there’s no nothing. We’re both here,” said Crawford when asked what he and Spence said to each other during their face-off today.
“We both acknowledged that this moment is about to be there. I feel I feel as if after this fight, everybody that had something negative to say about Terence Crawford, they will eat their words and they will give me the respect that I rightfully deserve, and so be it. If they don’t, then you know that’s something they will have to deal with.
“I feel like as if I was made for this moment. Sometimes I just really didn’t have too much to say because those wasn’t the actual fights that I really was gearing towards. I’ve been calling these guys out since 2018. I came in a division and went straight to the title.
“I didn’t have any tune-ups. I didn’t want any easy fight. I wanted all the top-name fighters in the welterweight division, and rightfully so. I got Jeff Horn in my first fight coming off a victory against Manny Pacquiao.
“If Manny Pacquiao would have been victorious, it would have been Terence Crawford vs. Manny Pacquiao. So, I fight anybody that’s put in front of me.
“No, I just texted him. I just let him know like, ‘Hey, what’s up? Let’s fight. You don’t have no fight. I don’t have no fight. Let’s get it done, and let’s stop playing around.
“‘I’m coming to you man-to-man. they work for you. You talk to them. I talk to my people and let’s come together and see what we can do to make this fight happen.’
“Who knows? We don’t know what Errol is doing when the cameras is not on him. I’m not the type of guy that always put the cameras on me or show what I’m doing all the time. So he could be playing possum.
“I don’t put it past nobody. I don’t get overconfident or anything. I just make sure that I’m doing the things that I need to do to better Terence Crawford,” said Crawford.
