By Bart Barry-
Saturday at AT&T Stadium in the Covid hotspot of Texas at the end of a PBC on FOX pay-per-view card, welterweight titlist Errol “The Truth” Spence decisioned former junior-welterweight champion Danny “Swift” Garcia by fair, obvious, unanimous scores. It was the first time the men fought but bore resemblances enough to Spence’s last AT&T Stadium appearance to be a rematch.
It was a decent fight. Hard stop. It wasn’t great or evidence of greatness.
Last year Spence and his handlers and enablers did heavy lifting to keep the extent (and cause) of his one-automobile accident quiet for too long to regale us now with a comeback story. If you’re transparent about what you did, you enroll yourself in the redemption sweepstakes. Spence did not do this. PBC handled the entire affair with signature cynicism. When people wanted updates on Errol’s condition and the cause of his hospitalization, we were to respect Errol’s privacy in his difficult time. When it appeared Spence was fully recovered and his tilt with Garcia shouldn’t be anything special, we started seeing an image of Spence in the hospital and hearing about his amnesia.
Would Spence be able to withstand Garcia’s attack? We knew the answer to that question about five minutes in, and the drama of the match suffered for it. For without Spence permanently damaged by his ejection from a Ferrari at speed, Spence-Garcia would be little more than Spence-Garcia 2.
There is no evil in Errol. He is a laidback, likable Texan. A suburban kid, a country boy, an excellent athlete, a fair entertainer. Three years ago there appeared a genuine chance at greatness. There doesn’t any longer. He fights without malice. He’s larger and more physical than his opponents and fights like he thinks it would be unseemly to press such advantages too far.
So it was in the moment after the final bell Saturday. Errol and Danny did a lap round the mat like coworkers, like Danny forgot his badge and Errol held the door for him. Nobody’d dared to do much for 48 minutes, except when Garcia dared to steal the final five seconds of some rounds. Spence took no obvious chances. He applied his template for disarming smaller men and wavered rarely from it, and when he did waver Garcia hadn’t the commitment or crunch to do more than spank him playfully for being naughty.
There was a caveat, and after the opening three or four rounds the only interesting part of the spectacle: Spence reacted bizarrely to every cross Garcia threw at his abdomen. By comparison to his otherwise nonchalant defense Spence’s reaction to Garcia’s righthand to his belly was cartoonish, jackknifed and jumpy. Something future opponents should research further.
Spence’s attack is effective but not compelling. Aesthetically it works best against men large as he. Two of Spence’s three pay-per-view matches, lamentably, have come against men both smaller and much smaller. Saturday’s Garcia looked the part at least; last year’s Garcia did not. Twenty-one months later that fight has aged worse than Tyson-Jones.
At least Spence’s cautiousness in Arlington that night was about not being the future star of an antibullying campaign; had Spence done something dastardly enough to make Mikey’s big brother fly the white feather he mightn’t have been sympathetic to as many people as he is today. Nothing is more frightful than losing one’s marketability.
Spence didn’t hurt this year’s Garcia because apparently it’s not what he’s into. PBC fighters treat PBC fights like league events.
It’s why Bud Crawford looked so damn dark in the crowd Saturday. Into the scripted and tightly controlled environment of a PBC production Crawford strode, a large black bar stretched across PBC’s pastel landscape. Crawford is dangerous. He’s unpredictable because he takes this whole thing personally. It’s not a promotional game to Bud. He’s not good at the business of boxing. Bud looked an actual psychopath at the afterparty of a Hannibal Lecter-tribute troupe, Saturday. Bud sneers where PBC personalities smile.
Spence may fight like Marvelous Marvin Hagler, but Bud has his personality. Spence had his chance after another highpaying tuneup to demand the one fight every aficionado wants. Instead he announced plans to horse around, maybe take another tuneup next summer. It wasn’t quite Marvin attending Sugar Ray’s retirement announcement – there is, after all, almost no chance PBC invited Crawford to be in Dallas – but it had a similar rhythm.
Crawford was there to make that point. Point made, Bud.
Spence isn’t afraid of Crawford, but he has too many highpaying opportunities with safe coworkers like Keith Thurman to dance with someone evil and unmarketable as Bud. During the uneventful second half of Saturday’s fight there was time to ask a question like: How would things be different if suddenly Crawford and Spence switched promoters?
Both men would benefit. Spence would get refined further by Top Rank matchmakers who’d excavate from Bolivia some spoiler that taught Spence the limits to his current style, limits he might transcend. Bud would get to feast on PBC’s soft spread the way old Manny Pacquiao has, first hospitalizing Adrien Broner than retiring Keith Thurman before stopping Shawn Porter. Then he could tell horseman Errol their stable is clean. Time to fight. Spence would respond as a prizefighter should. Both men would have a chance to be great.
After Saturday, I’d take Bud, KO-12.
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry
