Spence RUNS THROUGH Crawford! PERIOD!!!

Kahn got points taken for holding and rightfully so.

 

Spence will not fight Crawford.................Crawford will fight a fraud by the name of Horn...................next..............what a load of crap!

 

I thought that too until recently. I thought of Spence as a come forward aggressive fighter who imposes his will & physicality on other fighters, he has speed, timing, body punching etc but he lacked things. I thought as he moved up in opposition it was more apparent that his physical stature, power, engine & will were determining factors in his fights. I wasn't overly impressed with his win over Bundu, it was a solid performance but physical size & power were big factors. And Bud has such an all round game, I could see Bud out boxing Spence all night.

But even though the Peterson win isn't an elite win. He done subtle things in controlling the fight with Peterson that I hadn't see him do before, that allowed him to have an easy time rather than just Peterson not trying or maybe just past his best, because he was made to look lethargic and almost disinterested.

Spence has always had a stiff jab but like all of his punches, he seems to go all in in on everything but with good technique, something he's praised on. But as Brook showed, if you over commit on the jab all the time. A very good fighter will slip it & time you or at least make you miss and mess you're rhythm and timing. And Spence likes to use the jab to set up the left hand straight to head/body. And I could see Bud taking advantage of that better than Brook done with good movement, feints & Bud's probing jab. But having watched Spence/Peterson 3-4 times now, I couldn't help but pick up on how much more in control of rounds he looked. Less messy, scrappy action attributed to him not setting his shots up other than with same jab and opponents maybe attempting counters and not coming off and Spence bullying inside to work the body & break opponents systematically. But maybe eating some shots coming in & me thinking, if that's bud. You'll be peppered with counters before he spins off and we go round and round like Crawford/Postol.

If you re-watch the Spence-Peterson fight, you'll notice how Spence actually probed with the jab & used subtle feints to get reactions/reads from Peterson that allowed him to set up the left hand without looking off balance, or in a countering position. Anytime Peterson tried to close range, Spence would back off either stiff arming Peterson to gain control or use a probing jab to reset Peterson, which made Lamont punch shy at times. The probing jab set up attacks, counters and allowed more comfortable distance control that I'd seen so far from Spence. He's clearly evolving. He still throws hard shots but he looks like he's thinking of better ways to set up his attacks & realises that by committing to every shot it could lead to traps being set against him or counters being executed, where now he's making his opponent second guess & that gives him an advantage as they don't want to make mistakes against a puncher like Spence & in my opinion that's why Peterson looked a little punch shy. He was being punished for mistakes, he wasn't getting close as Spence controlled distance & space well, and Spence utilised feints and probing (jab mainly) to read Peterson and set up his own attacks which time and again Peterson went high guard and Spence went low with straight left to the body. If Spence had committed to all his shots, Peterson would at least have had opportunities to slip and step in or counter but Spence gave him few mistakes.

That's the first time performance wise (not tools that he has) I have watched Spence and thought yes, he is elite & very difficult to beat. Out box him ? More difficult than I thought. Out work ? Good luck. Out fight him on inside ? Give it a go, you'll come up short. I think Spence beat all comers at 147, he's getting better & is creating an aura that suggests he's very hard to beat.

Crawford/Spence are two of my favourites but I've swung from Bud out boxing Spence and Bud trying to draw jab leads & using the over committal of Spence's jab to slip/counter & move off. To Spence making it difficult for Bud to counter as he will vary his lead hand more & make Bud tentative, allowing Spence to control range, work the body & slow Bud down. A late TKO for Spence is how I see it going now.

 

I disagree. I don't think he's ready for those guys. I think they would hurt him at this point. We need to see how he handles a bigger opponent first before you throw him in with big SKILLED guys.

 

As usual in BF24 History another beautifully aged thread !

 

OH DEAR OH DEAR OH DEAR.

 

Good call....NOT