Dmitry Bivol is picking Terence Crawford to beat IBF/WBA/WBC welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr. in their fight on Saturday night.
WBA light heavyweight champion Bivol feels that Crawford’s “speed, movement, and reflexes” will carry him to victory against the younger, bigger & more powerful Spence (28-0, 22 KOs).
You can scratch off the reflexes from the list of attributes that Bivol gives to Crawford because he’s lost that quality with age. Also, Crawford’s movement and hand speed had taken a huge hit, as his mobility is labored & punches slower.
It’s unsurprising that Bivol is siding with Crawford because they’re a bird of a feather. Crawford has been a boxer through most of his career, and he’s turned into a slugger after moving up to welterweight and facing older fighters like Amir Khan, Kell Brook & Shawn Porter.
The 36-year-old Crawford (39-0, 30 KOs) looked like he’d lost a lot of hand speed in his recent fight against David Avanesyan, and you could clearly see the age that has set in with the Ohama, Nebraska native.
Crawford’s reflexes obviously aren’t once they once were, as he took some massive headshots from Avanesyan in that fight. Crawford might have been in trouble if that fight had gone into the later rounds.
We’ll see whether Crawford can hang with Spence in a war on Saturday night. Will Crawford be able to out-slug Spence, or will he fall apart under the fierce pounding from the younger, stronger fighter?
“Spence also has to worry about the fact that he’s been through a lot in his life so far, and Crawford, although he also has been about boxing for a lot of years now; usually that guy will have the advantage in the moment of truth,” said Max Kellerman to K.O. Artist Sports, previewing the Errol Spence Jr vs. Terence Crawford fight.
“Crawford’s always made adjustments. He’s probably the best-adjusting fighter in the sport. Deterioration is hard to say that
there’s been deterioration,” said Kellerrman on whether Spence has shown signs of deterioration in his game.
“I can’t say that there’s evidence for that. What is Spence’s most impressive performance? Maybe Kell Brook because Kell Brook was coming off an impressive performance, though it was a loss where he got his face broken [by middleweight champion Gennadiy Golovkin in 2016] in a higher division, but Spence really applied himself well in that fight.
“The Shawn Porter fight was a modern classic, but then again, Shawn Porter, though, was a little fresher at the time, gave Spence a better fight than he gave Crawford.”
