MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Errol Spence-Danny Garcia PPV Instant Analysis: Better Than before

Episode Date: December 6, 2020

Brian Campbell provides instant reaction to Errol Spence Jr.'s defense of his IBF and WBC welterweight titles in a unanimous decision over former champion Danny Garcia in their pay-per-view main event. What did the win prove in terms of Spence's recovery from a scary accident and where does this place him among the very best welterweights and pound-for-pound fighters in the world? BC provides all of that including what's next for both fighters and who should be favored in a Spence-Terence Crawford superfight. --------------------------------- 'Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

you hear that paid and done that's the sound of bills being paid on time but with the bimo eclipse rise visa card paying your bills could sound like this yes earn rewards for paying your bill in full and on time each month rise to rewards with the bimo Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. How's it? It's your boy, BC. Morning Combat coming at you always right after the big fights. It's instant analysis time. Spence Garcia, the pay-per-view in the books from Arlington, Texas. Errol Spence Jr. defending his WBC and IBF world titles at 147 and making it seem like 14 months in a scary car crash.

Never did happen. A lot more of that to come in this breakdown. Fresh off the end of the fight, please like the video, subscribe. This is what you're going to get from the Morning Combat channel. Three live shows per week with Luke Thomas and myself. All the big bonus interviews you need. All the big beige you can handle. Please do us that solid.

Let's get into this fight right away. Look, the question surrounding it, we all know, could Spence be the same from the accident? Did he have any broken bones? Got ejected from his Ferrari at a high speed. Tried to replace his teeth. He didn't remember the accident. He didn't remember the first three weeks of recovery.

We sort of speculatedulated armchair quarterbacked. How would that affect him? And it really came down to this one handicapping the fight. If Errol Spence comes in looking anywhere close to 100%, it was going to be a tough night for an always game Danny Garcia unless Danny Swift was able to channel an inner gear, find a level of output and aggression that we'd never seen from him before at the super elite level. It turns out not only did Spence not show any ill effects from the

accident, straight up, this is the hot take of the show right here. He looked even better than before. And I think there's a few reasons for that. And on top of that, we never got the big rally. We never got the gamble. It just might not be in Danny Swift Garcia. He can be neck and neck in close decision defeats at Walter White with the super elites from Keith Thurman to Sean Porter to this one. This one, obviously, much wider, though, in the end. I scored it 10 rounds to two for Spence, even though let's give Garcia some credit.

He was game. He was in basically every round, but you're talking about one of the best fighters of this division and era, really, in Errol Spence Jr. It wasn't enough. Two judges had it eight rounds to four, 116-112. The third one, 117-111, nine rounds to three. So you saw what kind of fight that was, certainly from the scoring.

But let's just put it right out there. I mean, Errol Spence looks fantastic. fight that was certainly from the scoring but let's just put it right out there i mean errol spence looks fantastic it is not incorrect to have a knee-jerk reaction to say he pretty much showed you he's the best welterweight in the world and that's always saying a lot because welterweight's the sex division it is the pay-per-view division it's where you typically find a lot of your pound for pound contenders and you look at his contemporaries in that top 10 pound forfor-pound. Manny Pacquiao at 41, fresh off, you know,

that long layoff following the Keith Thurman win. He's got the WBA belt. And Terrence Crawford, the unbeaten champion at the WBO, is also in that top five pound-for-pound. Manny in the 5-10 area. Crawford firmly there at 1, 2, or 3, whatever you had it. But before this fight coming in, you know, most of us had Spence at four or five.

This was the kind of performance where, I mean, what else are you going to say? You look at the run he's been on. He's got a much better resume than Terrence Crawford at welterweight. He's beaten Kell Brook, Danny Garcia, Mikey Garcia, Sean Porter, Lamont Peterson. And in most cases, except for really the Porter fight, has stopped or one-sidedly defeated these guys. So it's certainly not wrong to say Errol Spence right now, given the fact that Terrence Crawford, who might be the more skilled of the two,

the more dynamic, hasn't had the same level of opposition to prove that. Spence is your guy. He's in the conversation for pound for pound king he looked incredible and here's where you just never know like i said off the top about these layoffs for all the talk of spence getting new teeth going into sparring for the first time his dad his coach leary he looks great he wins them over he's talking to us during training camp that everything's fine. A likely scenario, I don't know about likely,

but a believable scenario would have been for him to get in there, get hit a couple times early, and then just not have the same spark or the same mental focus or the same confidence or the same toughness. Any intangible could have gone wrong, and this could have been a much closer fight. Yet there's something else that happened with that 14-month layoff. Let's think about it here from Spence's own words. He was living a, quote, reckless lifestyle. The night he flipped his car, he was out at a club drinking and driving afterwards. He had, after beating Sean Porter last fall, had gone on a trip to Miami with his guys

and was living it up, felt like he like he was quote on top of the world he had a very very humbling bounce back to be able to so miraculously have his life saved the way it was there was sort of speculation when it first happened if he can use the danger and the in the necessary wake-up call that was there could he be even better than we saw before and you know he did in those last 14 months? He got back into the gym right away. As soon as he physically could, they'd allow him. And he made this weight cut, which has always been hard for him at 147 because he's such a big welterweight.

It's basically the size of a junior middleweight. He made this weight cut easy, and he was in incredible shape. And he had said it in the interview on Morning Combat leading up. The focus was like the old-school focus, the young amateur Spence who lived for this. He may have, I mean, certainly, you know, bad pawn dodger, but he's dodged a bullet in surviving that crash. But he may have put his already great career

where it was after that Porter fight in a different position to go even higher right now if he retains this level of dedication and focus. So here's the deal. He was admitting that he was blowing up between fights, putting on a lot of weight. We've seen him between fights, showing up at fights. We all remember Brooklyn, right, a couple years back when Porter beat Garcia.

Spence came into the ring and said, you know, we good friends. I love your daddy. Let's get it on. He was puffy and chubby. He had been clearly drinking that night and seemed drunk on the microphone. There were rumblings coming up around the boxing game that Spence lives kind of hard and fast between fights. Who knows where that goes after this accident, but step one, sample one, test number one, he passed it with flying colors.

So if you're telling me this guy is now living a family-centered life he bought a ranch moved out of downtown Dallas you know the inside the city limits there and is focusing on horses and chickens and the farm and his kids and his craft this is this is a scary uh you know way things broke out for this division because this guy is so ridiculously talented he has the complete package and he used it all against Danny Garcia on this night he's a big southpaw yet he was way quicker than Garcia we knew he would from a foot speed standpoint but you got to give Garcia credit he's a very capable counter counter puncher not just powerful but quick in

that regard and I think the hand speed difference, although Garcia again, maintained a close, uh, made each round fairly close. Spence's ability to get that jab off at will, uh, that one on the fight. I loved his body work, but that jab consistently filled the holes of whenever this tense fight did

slow down a bit. And it caused that continued swelling on Danny Garcia's left eye. The swelling never got too dangerous, continued swelling on Danny Garcia's left eye. The swelling never got too dangerous, but it slowed Danny Garcia down. And you're waiting mid-fight once it seemed okay. Spence is back. He's probably up four rounds to one or so as we near the midpoint. You did see a nice little rally to a degree from Garcia. I gave Garcia rounds five and seven. A couple other people you see on social media threw him a couple rounds in that middle area too and i think the reason is danny realized the jab is just not going

to work against the southpaw spence who's quicker and smarter than he is in the ring i mean at one point danny had like three percent jab success he landed three percent of his jabs for like the first six or seven rounds so he switched to that lead right hand. And I think what happened was Spence came out very tense and aggressive, fought at a very high pace early. He didn't gas in the middle rounds, but he leveled in. He just sort of cruised in there. That's when Garcia saw his moment. Give him credit. He went to the body very well. Nice lead right hands, really started to mix some things up, started to get his power shots off to a certain degree, found a little bit of success there at the very least to gain Errol's respect. If Errol doesn't respect your power

coming back, he'll do what he did to Lamont Peterson. He will walk you down and sort of like the Chris Algeri fight, brutally get you out of there. Garcia maintained that respect, but the second it looked like Garcia might put a few rounds together. That's where Errol's IQ comes in. I mean, he's bigger, stronger, faster than everybody, but he's also smarter. He controls distance so well. He then switched things up and started going with the lead right hand, and it completely took away Danny's right hand altogether. The jab had already been taken away,

and that's when Errol really started to smell blood. Now, look, I don't think there was ever a point where he had Danny one punch away from a knockdown or a knockout. And that's such a credit to Danny Garcia's, you know, historic toughness, poise, character, all those things. But, you know, rounds nine, 10, 11, Danny slowly fading and Errol just started stepping on it. And I think he sort of got to a point where if the knockout was there, he was going to

get it, but he wasn't going to search for it. But he also wasn't going to slow down. He fought the perfect pace to do exactly what he did and sort of just swallow Danny Garcia down the stretch. Now, again, Garcia did enough to never be dominated. He did enough to always keep Errol honest and smart, but there's the flip side argument. Does he have it in him to win the super close fights if he's not in the lead you know even in the matisse fight i mean he rallied against amir khan although khan had early success in the first couple rounds and it was one punch that changed it it was a close fight early against lucas matisse but his boxing really started to pack in the middle rounds and

take the lead but we'd really never seen danny truly rally except for in the Keith Thurman fight. He lost a split decision, 7-5 on two scorecards. Third judge had it for him, 7-5. But it was his power that disciplined Keith Thurman, made Keith want to box more, circle away. Danny comes on late with body shots. He's really stepping on the pace in the final rounds. He had an argument.

You know, I thought Danny's loss to Sean Porter, I thought it was a lot wider Thurman fight. It was close, but he's not going to be able to rally like that. If he can't disarm his opponent and make him gun shy, Spence ate some fairly solid shots from Garcia and, and didn't blink kept coming. And that really took away the, the for garcia to rally just from the standpoint that he was the bigger puncher of the two and that threat was there when that threat wasn't there and spence was willing to fight him in the middle ground and not be afraid and get closer and closer it's just not in danny to gamble and you can look at that as a character flaw that has kept him from truly becoming an elite welterweight he's held the belt you know he won vacant title bouts whatever and he'll beat all of those b plus b b minus guys

solidly he'll knock out all those c guys but against the a's at welterweight you see certainly the gap in foot speed but i think you see the gap in this is where it gets tough not in desire not in in the want because danny was in great shape he came to fight he never stopped but he never got reckless and that's one thing for somebody like me to say from the basement because he's in there against a complete machine and spence had he gotten reckless maybe he knew he got caught with something and stopped but he also never tried to say look this is the defining fight in my life. I was great at 140 when I shocked everybody and became this hot prospect champion. And I've been really good at 147.

But I lost to Porter. I lost to Thurman. If I lose to Spence, you know, I'll be the guy on the outside looking in on this Renaissance, historically strong welterweight division. And, you know, that's where it ended up. And I think it just might not be in him at this weight class to take those risks. He's so responsible defensively, maybe to a fault that, you know, his dad didn't angel the trainer and then dad in the corner didn't have the right words for him, certainly.

And they called him out in the broadcast, maybe rightfully so, you know, come on, Danny, go for, you know, didn't have the instruction, but he also, I think, realized as well, it just might not be in my son to do that. And, you know, Danny Garcia's pretty freaking elite. I'm not going to sit here and roast him for that, but maybe that's what's prevented him from getting over the top now in his three biggest fights in this division. He was game enough to make it a close battle, make Errol have to work for it.

But if you don't already know, Er spence is is a truly special fighter and the things that we saw in him when he originally were climbing the pro ranks uh they're still there and more there really isn't a hole in the sky now he got hit and bedazzled to a certain degree by sean porter and their very close split decision last year but i I tend to believe now, even though I believe I'm going to give Porter credit for making Spence dance his dance for a while. I think Spence had, it goes back to sort of living that reckless lifestyle, feeling like you're on top of the world. I feel like he just didn't respect Porter enough. And his mindset was, I'm going to go in there and knock him out.

And it turned into somewhat of an all-action affair some high-speed chess and he beat Porter in that game even though he kind of allowed Porter to get as close as he could to beating him by sticking to that style and being so aggressive this was the response to that fight was this one now it's a different opponent Danny Garcia certainly did not push the kind of pressure that Sean Porter would foot speed wise and mixing in the variety switching stances all that to a certain degree but um Porter Spence fought Garcia at such a safe distance yet close enough where he could do damage and this version of him guys if he is this wired in it's it's crazy that my history of of knowing that Spence Crawford would be and will be and

eventually will be right the defining fight of this era it really is i'm not lying to you here it really is the sugar ray leonard tommy hearns fight welterweight wise unification of our time okay i hope we get it soon right crawford only supposed to have one more fight left on his top deal but that whole time, originally I was a Spence guy recently when I'm watching Terrence Crawford do the sort of next level dynamic thing, switching stances. Um,

you know, I mean, look, Spence is the perfect machined, well-rounded, absolute killer tens and all category version of a pressure, smart boxer who can get you out of there that he can be. Bud's an abstract artist. Bud can just do things in there that are next level. So I started to really start to lean and shade Bud over the last year, even though he

doesn't have the same competition level that Spence is fighting. I think this performance brings me back. It brings me back that when and and if they do fight and hopefully it'll be in the next year and a half, right? Uh, let's say Crawford plays out his deal with, uh, with top rank, then signs with the PBC.

You're going to have to see this fight within the next two years. They'll both be in their mid thirties, but they'll both be one and two pound for pound by then. Uh, I don't know who's going to win because Spence can box just as well as he can naturally walk you down and put the pressure on you. And he put a lot of mental pressure on Danny Garcia in this fight. And that's such a very underrated skill in boxing.

When you are constantly coming forward without the fear of having to take a step back, right? He was dodging Danny's big punches, couple grazed him there, ate a couple of flush ones, but he kept moving forward. That puts a lot of fatigue, mental pressure on you. Him against Bud is going to be the defining fight of really this era of boxing. This has been Canelo's era in the aftermath of Mayweather Pacquiao, and Canelo's the star of this era.

He's my number one pound for pound fighter, unquestionably. But Spence Crawford is a special generational era fight the same you know the same way uh mayweather pacquiao was the same way de la jolla trinidad was for welterweight 15 years before that the same way lou you know leonard and hearns was in 1981 at wel Waite. So we need to see it. We need to see it when they're both unbeaten. We need to see it when they're both champions. But you know what? Spence saying 60-40 to Crawford back a couple months ago doesn't look so arrogant now.

Look at his resume compared to Bud's. He's in the power position having two of the four belts, and he's on the right side of the street politically where all the big opponents are so this performance over danny garcia by errol spence that was the you now have to come get me performance you know i mean like i want that fight to be a 50 50 pay-per-view fight they're both on the same team let's just go out there but if it if it can't happen that way if it's got to be some super two network deal spence the a side right now it is it is what it is he's the star this is three straight headlining pay-per-views now we don't know the numbers of course for this one but three in a row he's a star he's living up to it in every

category and you never want to sort of try to throw out there that an unbeaten boxer driving drunk and nearly killing himself and others and being miraculously lucky to come away with just, you know, a couple of scrapes, new teeth in a, in a arrest on his record. Like that could be the best thing for his career,

but it might end up being that because a dialed and Spence is a, is a complete machine and him and Crawford, uh, what separates them from the other welterweights in this division, and look, Manny Pacquiao has these attributes, but he's older. What separates Crawford and Spence from everybody else is they are truly old school. They want to fight nothing but the best, and they want to fight them when they fight them. They want to fight 12 hard rounds and go for it.

Spence Crawford is going to be a special fight. Today, this day, the year of our Lord, 2020, the weirdest year of our lifetime. I like Spence right now. I like him, but it's going to be close no matter what, and I can't wait until we get there. Let's give credit where credit is due. Completely feral, Spence.

Very few people can come back in this type of comeback situation. No tune-up. Already going through a wacky year of covid 2020 and just dial in and be better than ever uh it's a big win this this this should adjust the pound for pound rankings to a certain degree uh he had the easiest time against danny garcia of any of his brethren there in this division and that that certainly says something for dann Danny 32 years old, probably already has established himself as a, as a,

you know, a hall of fame threat was incredible at one 40 unified belts was the man has had some good moments and big fights at welterweight, but in a weird way, how, you know, when we talk about the four Kings of the 1980s, that stretched from welterweight up to middleweight with Hearns,

Hagler, Duran and Leonard, we sort of always look at Tommy Hearns, whose impeccable resume, Hall of Famer, all that. Like, you know, way, way better resume than Danny Garcia. Way better, way higher historical claim. But still, in that group, Tommy Hearns was the bridesmaid to a certain degree, right?

He had a loss and a draw with Leonard, although the rematch with the draw probably should have been a Hearns win but uh you know yeah he knocked out duran but lost the the uh the freaking war with uh haggler and sorta was the guy who came up short the most and that may be danny garcia in this era you know we'll see i mean i would love to see uh and that's you know this is a good thing here's the good thing here they all still want to fight each other and they all still have to fight each other and most of these guys 90 of the great welterweights are still under the pbc so um here's what's next for spence right they'll probably feel out and see if we can do manny

pacquiao because that would really take spence and just give him his best chance to be a star even though he's not overly charismatic on the mic, all that. Let's say they don't get it. And let's say they can't do Crawford next because it's going to be a tough decision for Bob Arum and company. If they feel like they're going to lose him, and it looks like they will right now, what do you do with his last fight? Do you go as big as you can and cash out? Or do you try to prevent and limit him from being able to use you to project himself somewhere bigger maybe there's a bio i don't know we'll see what happens there but it's not likely that's next for spence um i don't think it would be porter even because porter's the mandatory for a few

guys including crawford and seems like he really wants to push that and look maybe that would be a good final fight for uh for terence crawford under that banner who knows but if spence's next fight is against keith thurman i am here for it that is the matchup i wanted from day one because let's not forget i know keith thurman has not looked great lately missed two years due to injury he struggled against josecito lopez in his comeback fight then you know he looked great against manny despite being dropped and losing a close decision yes Yes, I had Thurman 7-5 and I will sit down

with you in black and white, smear peanut butter on your screen, watch it with our underpants on, whatever you want to do to make you see that it was a close fight. Keith was the guy in this division a couple years back. He had the best resume. I always wanted to see him against Spence. I wouldn't doubt, unless there's a mandatory

defense that has to be done, that Spence Thurman might not be the fight to make, especially if Thurman can come back to start the year and get a nice touch just to stay busy. That could end up being another big pay-per-view for Spence as we build towards the fights we need

to see, including and most especially Terrence Crawford. I've done enough rambling here. The fight played out really in the end to how we predicted, but see, including and most especially Terrence Crawford. I've done enough rambling here. The fight played out really in the end to how we predicted, but Errol Spence, still your welterweight king at the end of the day. Two of the four belts, one of the pound for pound best. He's not only back, he's back with a bang and he's angling upwards even better. Cannot wait to see what the future brings for this division.

They all want to fight each other. We can make most of these fights. Let's do it. Let's keep it going. If we end up with a Thurman-Porter rematch, you're not going to be mad. If we end up with any form of this, you're not going to be mad. I don't know where Danny Garcia goes next. They'll give him a soft-ish.

I mean, you could give him Jose Cito Lopez if you wanted to. It'd be a fun little fight. Danny would beat him, and then we'd see where Danny can go from here. He's going to fight for a title again as a B-side. We know that. Big win for Spence. That's it. This is the guy, the beige one. Your boy, BC.

Please like the video, subscribe. Like what we do here on the MK from the main show to the bro-sected to the hard cores to the... We got a lot of different, you know, pots on the burner right there, but that's all I got.

You know, what do you want me to do? All right. We're an airpiece. That's all I got. It's over. End it. I don't want to do this anymore.

It's over.