I quit boxing at 28 - now it's time for vulnerable Errol Spence to walk away too

04 August 2023 , 12:06

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Errol Spence Jr. gets knocked to the mat by Terence Crawford (Image: 2023 Getty Images)

I’m worried for Errol Spence. I’m not a doctor or a scientist but I have been in boxing for 50 years and I know when I see a guy lose punch resistance.

The way that Terence Crawford was able to dismantle him in Las Vegas was frightening from Spence’s point of view.

It didn’t look like Spence in there. That’s how good Crawford was. He made a great fighter look like an amateur. And Spence knew it. He was beaten mentally. That doesn’t go away.

You can’t recapture your ability to take a shot. If that code is cracked in your brain and nervous system, if that has been broken, it is not coming back. The signs as far as I am concerned were very worrying. I believe he should consider walking away rather than going up seven pounds to take on Crawford again.

I gave up at 28 because I wanted to be lucid in my sixties, which I am, thank God. It is the hardest decision to make but I don’t regret it for one second.

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I could have come back and had multi-million-dollar fights if I had wanted them. But not at the expense of my well-being. This is a brutal business. Knowing when to stop is the most important decision a fighter will ever make.

Spence won the American national championships in 2012 and represented the US at the London Olympics that year. He was at light middleweight back then, or 152 pounds as it was in the amateurs. He was boiling himself down even then.

Eleven years later he is still busting a gut to make 147 pounds. He was undoubtedly weight-drained last week. With that kind of performance you have to wonder what impact a career cutting weight has had on him.

Terence Crawford knocks down Errol Spence (AP)

Add in the car accident and the unrelated eye operation that forced upon him bouts of inactivity and you are left with a seriously underpowered Spence against Crawford.

He looked vulnerable. As you get older it is harder to absorb punishment, the more so when you are dehydrated, as fighters always are when cutting weight.

Spence says he wants a rematch at 154 pounds, but it might already be too late for that at the highest level. Crawford was pin-point accurate. He is so efficient. He makes a tough game look easy, and made a great world champion look bang average.

I don’t expect Spence to walk away. It is his decision to make, but I know what I would do were I in his shoes.

**Follow Barry on Twitter at @ClonesCyclone @McGuigans_Gym

Barry McGuigan