International Boxing Hall of Famer Carl ‘The Cobra’ Froch says it is almost impossible to pick a winner in the upcoming four-belt welterweight unification bout between WBC, WBA and IBF boss Errol ‘The Truth’ Spence Jr 28-0 (22) and WBO kingpin Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford 39-0 (30) at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada on July 29.
But the former three-time super middleweight champion, who retired nine years ago, revealed this week the boxer that he is giving the slight edge to.
“I like the older, wiser Terence Crawford. Errol Spence is a fantastic talent, a great fighter. Crawford is as well, but he’s just a bit older and a bit wiser – and when he needs to he can step it up a level,” Froch said on Froch on Fighting.
“He’s a bit similar to Oleksandr Usyk in the heavyweights. If he has a bad round, he then just steps on the gas. I think Crawford has that slight extra gear and is that little bit more special. So I’d say Crawford beats Spence, but it really is a 51-49 percent fight, nothing in it. It’s one I’m really looking forward to.”
Froch isn’t the only one undecided on the result.
Undefeated welterweight contender Vergil Ortiz 19-0 (19), who will face Eimantas Stanionis 14-0 (9) at the AT&T Center in San Antonio, Texas on Saturday night, is torn on the result.
“You know, at first I thought Crawford was going to win, but then I thought Spence was going to win, and Crawford then Spence,” Ortiz admitted to Bro Bible.
“I’ve been flip flopping a lot. And every time I think about it, I think of new outcomes. I don’t know. It’s kind of hard. I could even say that it might be a draw.”
Crawford and Spence have been eyeing each other off for years, anticipating that at some stage of their careers they would have to fight. Years ago, they even did some sparring together, giving both a glimpse of what lay in their future.
Froch’s fellow Hall of Famer, ‘Sugar’ Shane Mosley, says he heard whispers about what went down when they shared a ring in the gym all that time ago.
“I can only go by what I heard: that Spence kind of did some damage to Crawford when they sparred,” Mosley said in an interview with Showbizz.
“It’s going to be hard for him to fight with a guy he’s been in the ring with before, and they both know each other. They both know what’s going on.”
Spence himself praised Crawford for his ability to fight back from adversity when hurt, citing the Yuriorkis Gamboa fight in 2014 as a prime example.
“Even [against] Gamboa, he showed a lot of determination, just because you see when a fighter gets hurt you see how they react,” Spence said on the podcast Morning Kombat. “He reacted in a courageous way, so you know, I don’t see any fault in that.
“You get fighters who get hurt and they get timid or they always jumping or they more scared and not as active as they used to be but with him, he gets meaner when he gets hurt.”
