Crawford is not on the same level as a Canelo

Don't go bringing civility up in here, Kirk!!!

 

I do sort of agree; Crawford was never a good matchup for Spence, and after Spence's car crash and deterioration due to out of the ring issues it's no surprise their fight was uncompetitive. I think welterweight contenders such as Staniosis, Butaev and especially Ortiz if he could make the weight would give Crawford a much more competitive fight.

 

as soon as a fighter has a big win, regardless of weight class, they immediately get put into a fantasy matchup against canelo

 

It doesn't matter if he was different after the crash or not. That fact remains that this "different" version of Spence was operating at a world level being world level fighters.

 

Against Spence, he didn't perform to the level he had been performing in his other post-crash fights. That's not Bud's fault, and credit has to be given to Bud to do what he did. But if we're gonna compare that win to Canelo's draw/win over GGG, many were also using GGG's age to discredit what Canelo accomplished. Many were saying GGG was already past prime at 35/36 and with that logic they weren't giving Canelo full credit for those results. So if there were those who were making excuses saying GGG was past it at 35/36 then you gotta be consistent and say the same thing about Spence, if not more, that he's past his best. I mean who performed better, GGG against Canelo in fights 1 and 2 or Spence vs Crawford. I don't think it's even remotely comprable. GGG fought a determined fight in fights 1 and 2 against Canelo and he was far more durable than Spence.

Another thing, a lot of people were talking about how Spence was ranked #4 P4P so that's a great P4P win. Well when Canelo fought GGG the first two times, GGG was P4P #1 / P4P #2 at the time. Ward was generally considered #1 P4P before he retired and GGG was #2 in most P4P rankings at that time. So GGG was actually higher P4P than Spence was against Crawford. Now granted Crawford beat Spence far more convincingly than Canelo beat GGG, but hindsight 20/20 I think you have to look back and say Canelo fought a far better, far closer to his prime fighter in GGG than Crawford beat in Spence.

 

Nah. The first thing everyone did was put Crawford in a fantasy matchup with Floyd. He's the modern standard.

 

It doesn't matter what you think reg, "the fact remains" he was thrown 70 feet from a high speeding vehicle and hit the concrete like a sack of potatoes. If that happened to you we'd be reading your obituary.

 

He was operating at a world level after the fact. If he was unifying titles after the wreck then Crawford gets credit for beating a unified champion. The wreck doesn't magically erase that fact that Spence was operating as a unified champion.

 

Sure a unified champion but there's always been lingering effects from the accident, like losing focus when his mouthpiece came out against ugas and instead of protecting himself at all times ugas clipped him and hurt him. It's like his brain was telling him he's at home sitting on the couch. Ugas and Garcia are very good fighters but they're not world beaters, and don't have half the talent that Crawford has so they really couldn't exploit the neurological damage that Spence had suffered. He should retire.

 

He was, but the lingering effects of the neurological damage and how it affects his performance could take time to materialize. Not to take anything away from Crawford's excellent victory, but that was not the same high level operator in Spence from before the crash or even in the fights after the crash before he fought Bud. He wasn't protecting himself, he didn't keep a high guard and was just walking into shots, great fighters don't do that. There's a reason sports media personalities were saying he should retire after the fight.