Ricky Burns did Better Against Crawford than Errol Spence

Not necessarily, he was already a pretty polished genuine article even then. The absolute shutout ease with which he dominated the likes of Prescott, Klimov and Sanabria on HBO, even though the matches were far from exciting, I could see he had some Mayweather level slickness even then. Then when you take into consideration that he beat Gamboa a few months after beating Burns and it wasn't a very competitive match. He was well past being green even then. If anything, I've seen a degree of regression since those days.

 

Same, but Burns never stopped trying, and was consistently fairly competitive in a 60/40 or 70/30 sense. Spence aside from edging the first round on activity was never in their match and got badly dominated through the majority of the fight. Burns also never went down and saw the final bell. So not even remotely the same.

 

So did Mean Machine. He did not look at all clueless in there like Spence did, was competitive, won 2 or 3 rounds, was landing with big clean flush shots, and hurt and dropped Crawford. He got worn down and stopped but he was holding his own, had no problem penetrating Crawford's defence, and was right in the fight.

So did peg-leg cripple Benavidez who has problems moving in and out of range because his leg is a complete mess and he shouldn't even be boxing. That was a very competitive fight.

Even Avanesyan did better too. I'm not saying Crawford wasn't in control and dominating but Avanesyan's pressure was more effective against Crawford than Spence's was. Avanesyan caught him a bunch of times and rocked him a couple of times too. Crawford was in control but he looked more uncomfortable dealing with his pressure and power than he did with Spence who he was whooping at a canter.

And Avanesyan was giving away almost six inches in reach to Crawford and that was a huge advantage for Crawford because closing the distance was the biggest issue for Avanesyan and Crawford was stiff-arming him quite often to keep him at bay. Spence was only giving away 2'' in reach to Crawford.

Many of Crawford's opponents at 147 probably did better against him than Spence did, if even some only marginally and his fight with Porter was razor-close at the finish.

 

Burns was coming off of going the distance with a most likely roided up Beltran, who broke his jaw early in the match, then went on to go the distance with Figueroa when he was vicious and Zlaticanin, so I'm not so sure about that. Sure, Burns ain't all that when it comes to boxing, but he's always been tough as shoe leather and nails. The reality is, Spence has always been a bit frail, post accident and weight cut, that frailness has been exacerbated. There's a veritable laundry list of fighters in recent memory, that have all performed better than Spence, against even this far more seasoned version of Bud, which casts Spence in a terrible light. A shot Porter performed out of his skin, and took between 5 to 6 rounds off of Bud. So I don't think it has anything to do with experience, but merely the toughness of said opponents. On his best day, Spence is nowhere near as tough as Porter or Burns.

 

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Not as competitive but still more so than Spence was

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Crawford even said Egis was his hardest fight and Gamboa too because of his fast feet. Egis is a good fighter but nothing special. Bit like Spence. His big breaks came against Crawford and Vergil Ortiz, both of whom he hurt, but if he had the PBC/Showtime mafia behind him feeding him a load of featherfisted 140 pounders and a blown up 135 pounder whilst avoiding Crawford he may well have become a unified champion like Spence.

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