Few fighters have the credibility and matter as much to the sport of boxing as Roy Jones Jr. A hall-of-fame boxer who redefined two generations of how boxing fans saw the sport itself, recently caught up with ProBox TV News to give his take on the big fight of the week, Errol Spence Jr vs. Terence Crawford, which happens this Saturday on July 29th, on pay-per-view, and takes place the T-Mobile Arena, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
For Jones, it is hard to remove the fact that Spence was involved in a life-altering car crash in 2019.
Stylistically, Jones sees the way both fighters use strategy as a key part of what makes this such a great and compelling match-up. He sees each fighter as enjoying advantages in different stanzas of the bout. It is also important to note that Jones feels that if Spence were to lose it will be hard to separate the outcome of this bout from Spence's car crash.
"If Errol does lose we [are going to] say, 'well, yeah [Crawford] beat him, but what if they had have fought before the accident,' wondered Jones. "If he is okay, we are going to get a hell of a fight, because one of them is an earlier fighter and one of them is a later fighter."
What makes the fight so intriguing for Jones it appears is that he believes if the fight goes into the later rounds Spence could force the action and that may lead to a very exciting and memorable final act to the last bell.
"Crawford is an earlier fighter, and Spence is a later fighter," said Jones. "So if we have an earlier fighter and a later fighter, and the fight gets late we could be in for some really interesting fireworks."
Errol Spence Jr, won his first world title in 2017, as he traveled to Sheffield, England, to face local favorite and IBF Champion Kell Brook, stopping Brook in the eleventh round to win the IBF welterweight world title. Since then, he defeated Shawn Porter for the WBC welterweight world title in 2019, but also later that year had a car crash. In his return in 2021, Spence had a detached retina surgery, as he was unable to fight against Manny Pacquiao on pay-per-view. Pacquaio would lose to Yordenis Ugas setting the stage for Spence to stop Ugas in 2022, which was the last fight he had prior to this bout.
Crawford is a three-division world champion, who won his first world title in 2014 against Ricky Burns in the lightweight division in the U.K. Crawford would become the undisputed junior welterweight champion, before moving up to the welterweight division, and defeating Jeff Horn to win the WBO welterweight world title in 2018. Since winning the title Crawford has successfully defended it six times, with the biggest names he beat during that run being Shawn Porter and Kell Brook.
