By Norm Frauenheim-
Shawn Porter is good with a microphone. He uses it to analyze. He uses it to comment. Predict and argue, too. He also uses it to deliver a few opening salvos in the opening rounds of the fight before the fight. Psychology always precedes the punches, and that’s where Porter appears to have gained a slight edge over the favored Errol Spence in their welterweight unification fight Saturday night at Los Angeles’ Center.
Porter, a Fox studio analyst when he isn’t in the gym, has spun all the rhetorical angles at Spence, who delivers more ounches from angles than one liners.
It’s been entertaining. It’s also been something of a diversion. It’s hard to tell if any of the talk has had any impact on Spence. He’s tough to read. Tougher to beat. Just ask Mikey Garcia, who came up in weight and appeared to be winning all of the news conference and media appearances. At opening bell in a ring at about the 50 yard line on the Dallas Cowboys home field at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Tex., last March, however, Garcia never had a chance in losing a one-sided decision. Porter, of course, has an explanation for that. He has said repeatedly that Garcia was a lightweight making a futile jump to welterweight.
“Truth is,” Porter said in repeated play on Spence’s nickname, “is that I’m a real 147-pounder.”
But, truth is, Porter rarely mentions a common foe who sums up the difference between the two: Kell Brook. Porter (30-2-1, 17 KOs) lost to Brook. Spence (25-0, 21 KOs) beat him.
Spence knocked him out in in 2017, scoring an 11th-round stoppage in an eye-opening upset in Sheffield, Brook’s hometown in the UK. Brook was coming off a loss, a fifth-round stoppage, to Gennadiy Golovkin at middleweight at a time when GGG was in his prime. The two-division jump up the scale was too much for Brook. He returned to his natural weight, which he had dominated. But he had no answer for Spence.
About three years earlier in 2014, Porter, a heavy favorite, lost a majority decision to Brook in Carson, Calif. The victory over Porter did for Brook what the victory over Brook did for Spence. Each went from interesting to the most feared welterweights of their day. In terms measured by physical dimensions, Porter will see and then encounter a fighter built a lot like Brook Saturday on Fox PPV. At 5- foot 9, Brook was a big welterweight. At 5-10, Spence is even bigger. Spence also has three more inches in his reach than Brook, 72 to 69.
Truth is, all of those numbers add up to tougher task for Porter, who is listed at 5-7 with a 69 1/2-inch reach. Porter’s argument is that Spence has never had to face the kind of adversity Spence has. Porter has had to fight his way out of trouble. Spence never has. But there’s a reason for that, one as simple of that tale on the tape and a common foe, Brook.
Prediction: Spence wins a unanimous decision.
