Derrick James, the trainer of Errol Spence Jr., hopes his fighter will face Terence Crawford one day. And he’s pretty sure he knows what will happen if it happens.
James was asked on The PBC Podcast how a Spence-Crawford fight would play out and he laughed.
“I’m going to say what Errol would say. He would say, ‘one-sided performance,’” James said. “… I think he’d knock him out.”
That doesn’t mean that James has no respect for Crawford, the three-division champion who some believe is the best fighter in the world. He does. He just qualifies his praise.
“Besides Manny Pacquiao and I say Claressa Shields now, [Crawford] is the most-decorated professional fighter right now,” said James, referring to Crawford’s collection of belts. “But I think the level of competition has not been there. So I think they’ve anointed him something he has not technically earned because he’s never fought quality, like top, top [opponents].
“I don’t think he has. You can say [Yuriorkis] Gamboa but that was like, what, 20 years ago? So I think it’s interesting.”
James went on. And he didn’t hold back.
“I think Terence Crawford is naturally an amazing athlete but he has very weak, poor fundamentals and poor technique,” he said. “It will come into play [in a fight with Spence]. … I think he’s a great fighter, very decorated. He’s won a lot of fights. He’d been great. We’ll just see.”
Meanwhile, James said Spence has been back in the gym for a few weeks after surviving a horrific car crash in October. And, James said, he looks like … well, Spence.
“It’s just like he hadn’t left,” said James, who doesn’t have Spence sparring yet. “… I’m watching him, looking for everything. If he’s reacting slower, if he’s not seeing punching coming. … He’s making all the right moves, doing everything correct.”
James doesn’t know when or who Spence might fight next. He leaves that up to the fighter and his management team. And he can’t say whether he believes Spence should take a tune-up fight or jump right into a major event, at least not yet.
“I want him to have what he wants,” he said. “We’re gauging him from this point on to see if that’s (a tune-up) something we would need or just go into something big. We’re gauging him. So we’ll know.”
One thing seems certain: Spence won’t be fighting Crawford soon. One day, though, Crawford is likely to get his chance to prove James wrong.