For the first time since September 2019, Errol Spence Jr. will step into a ring on Saturday and put his two welterweight titles on the line against Danny Garcia. When he walks into AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, Spence will be more than a year removed from his most recent fight, a split-decision victory over Shawn Porter, and Spence will also be just more than a year removed from a horrific single-car accident in which he was ejected from his car and eventually charged with a DWI.
As Spence attempts to put that October 2019 night behind him and prove that he's every bit of the fighter who earned two world titles in a wildly competitive welterweight division, Garcia is no easy challenge. In previous world title bouts against Porter and Keith Thurman, tight decisions that swung on one or two rounds kept Garcia from winning, but his punching power and counter-punching ability make him dangerous.
What can we expect in Saturday's pay-per-view main event? Two-division world champion and ESPN boxing analyst Timothy Bradley Jr. is here to break down the key factors that will determine the outcome of the fight and the stakes at hand.
What are your expectations for Spence coming into this fight?
Terence Crawford says a megafight with Errol Spence Jr. is inevitable and vows to defeat the unified champion when the time comes.
The obvious concern coming into this fight is whether we're going to get the Spence whom we saw running through the welterweight division or a different version because of the lingering effects of that car accident. Boxing fans want it to be all about what happens in the ring, how guys prepare and the skills they have, but the reality here is that the accident is the biggest question hanging over the fight.
When you go through something such as that, it takes a toll on you. You might not know for days, months or years what the short-term and long-term fallout could be. I remember when my mother got into a serious car accident. She was thrown from the vehicle, and she still suffers from aches and pains from that night. She survived, but she was very different afterward.
My main concern with Spence going into this fight is how his face and jaw will hold up to power punches. He and his team think he's OK, but until he moves beyond sparring and into a real fight environment, we won't know.
He's in there against a serious puncher in Danny Garcia. I think that speaks to how Spence feels right now. For him to take this type of fight -- in his first fight back from the accident and first fight since September 2019 -- tells you how much he believes in himself and where his mindset is right now.
I always tell people: Boxing is 10% physical and 90% mental. Getting into that ring is all a mental battle. Preparing and having a lot of sleepless nights, it's all mental. Fighting your demons, fighting that doubt out of your system, it's tough. But Spence has managed that to this point.
If both fighters stay to previous form, how do you project the matchup between Garcia and Spence?
As far as styles go, I think Garcia is tailor-made for a guy such as Spence. Spence has a reach advantage by a few inches; Garcia has a 68.5-inch reach, whereas Spence has a 72-inch reach. Spence is a southpaw, which generally makes things difficult, though Garcia fought Ivan Redkach, also a southpaw, in his most recent fight and won pretty handily. But the styles are definitely different, and you're talking about a fighter in Spence who is one of the best in the world. Styles and temperaments make fights.
Garcia is a counter-puncher. He's cautious, a thinking fighter. He likes to take his time. He likes to pinpoint his spots. He has very good timing and understands how to get in position to land his shots. A lot of people were talking about the no-look left hook that he likes to throw. I remember Garcia catching Amir Khan with that no-look hook, but I don't see a likely scenario in which a shot such as that lands against Spence.
Spence is more of a technical fighter, very technically and fundamentally sound. He gets his hands up and fires off his jab. He has punching power as well. Spence is bigger than Garcia. I think he will be the stronger man in this fight. I think he can dictate the space and the distance, and I think that's what's going to serve Spence best in this fight.
For all of the things he has been able to accomplish in his career, Garcia is, essentially, a flat-footed fighter. He fights in one gear. He never seems to have a sense of urgency. I remember his performance in the Thurman fight. He didn't step on the gas quickly enough, and he lost a close split decision in his first welterweight title shot. The same thing happened against Porter. He's comfortable, whether he's winning or losing on the cards, fighting at that pace. That's going to serve Spence, who is going to be able to control the distance outside and dictate the pace with his jab, his subtle movement and his combinations from the outside.
What can Garcia do differently to change the outcome, compared to his two previous title challenges?
I think Garcia is going to have to find a way to move forward. He's going to have to find a way to pressure Spence to get into his kitchen, to fight inside.
But that has never really been Garcia's way of fighting. He likes to sit on the back foot and counter. He's going to be looking for Spence to make a mistake, to kind of draw Spence in. The way to challenge Spence is to push him back, test him early and see how his chin holds up. Come out firing. It would be a mistake to be passive, letting Spence warm up, get comfortable after four rounds and get acclimated.
During the fight, it's going to be about making adjustments. I think Spence has consistently shown an ability to make adjustments. If he needs to step on the gas, he will. If he needs to box on the outside, he will. If he needs to apply pressure, he will. Can Garcia do that?
What do you want to see from Spence early in the fight that would tell you everything's OK with him?
I want to see Spence put things together mentally in this fight. I want to see him behave like he used to, not be afraid. I want Spence to be solid all the way through, like he was, like we saw before the accident. If I can see that early on, then I know he's all right.
But if he's passive in any way and if I see some kind of lack of urgency, maybe some passiveness in his game, then I worry.
On top of everything else, Spence has to deal with the effects of a long layoff, not only from the accident but also from general out-of-ring inactivity. There's going to be a lot of stress on him -- physical, mental and emotional stress from everything that has led up to this fight. It could take him a couple of rounds to warm up.
During the course of the fight, we should see what Spence has in him because Garcia is the type of fighter who is going to test an opponent mentally, and he's going to test Spence physically, too, because of that punching power.
If he can win this fight, how do you see Spence faring in the long term?
Coming out of such a scary, eye-opening moment, from the limited things we've seen and heard from Spence to this point, it seems like he understands who he is and understands how he feels. In his mind, Spence is ready, and he doesn't need to take a step back before returning to his previous trajectory in his career. He feels that he's in position to continue to step forward, and he feels great, and his mind is right. Whatever the mind says, the body should follow, as long as there aren't any unforeseen setbacks.
Maybe, in some backward way, this accident could turn out to be a blessing in some sense, as long as the long-term physical fallout doesn't come back to haunt Spence. It could be an eye-opener for where his life was heading, where it could go and how close he was to losing everything. I don't know.
Spence has always fought the top competition out there. But maybe his new mindset is to chase the absolutely toughest fights out there. He has rededicated himself to boxing and is working as hard as ever in the gym. It seems, for now at least, that Spence has kind of left that outside life, that late-night life, alone. He seems to me to be in a good place mentally, in that he's moving in the right direction and behaving more like a champion should, someone who wants to be one of the true stars of boxing, and I think that's going to help him tremendously moving forward in his career.
If Spence wins this fight, do you think a Terence Crawford fight is on the table?
In the long term, ultimately, yes. Whether a fight against Crawford happens in the near future is going to be up to Spence, his team and his advisors. We could find out a lot about the likelihood of a Crawford fight in 2021 from Spence's performance against Garcia. I think that if Spence looks tremendous -- and he's the first guy to knock out Garcia, or he puts him on his backside a couple of times and really dominates this fight -- I can see a fight possibly happening in 2021.
But if Spence goes in there and lays an egg or goes in there and doesn't look impressive, gets hit and gets touched or -- God forbid -- goes down and barely grinds out a win, I don't see a Crawford match coming together in 2021.
Al Haymon is not going to put his No. 1 fighter against Bud Crawford if he isn't 100 percent. If he doesn't think that his fighter can beat a fighter such as Crawford, he isn't going to do that. He isn't going to risk it. You've got to understand that those belts that Spence holds, if they get into Terence Crawford's hands, then what kind of control over the welterweight division will Haymon have if he has no belts? Besides Crawford, he has all the major welterweights on his side of the promotional "street." But all those fighters don't matter if you don't have any belts or have just one.
Haymon would then be forced to put the rest of his fighters against Crawford. Business-wise, he has the option for his guys to kind of do a round robin, getting Porter, Thurman, Spence and Manny Pacquiao up against one another. That way, Haymon can control everything but the one belt Crawford has right now.
Do I think the fight will happen at some point? Yeah, it's boxing. With enough money and the right circumstances, Crawford-Spence will eventually come to fruition. But as has happened too many times in boxing, especially in the modern era, it might be after both of those guys have gone past their peaks. It wouldn't be terribly surprising to me to see Crawford and Spence fight in 2022 or 2023 once Spence's team feels a lot more confident about beating a lesser version of Crawford.
Prediction
I see Spence winning this fight. I don't think it's going to be a stoppage, but I don't think it's going to be an easy fight for Spence. I think Garcia has a chance in this fight if he catches Spence and he hurts him. But stylistically, I think this is a fight for Spence to win hands down.