His Return is on the Horizon
By Eddie Sanchez
The much anticipated and heavily rumored PBC matchup between Errol Spence Jr. and Danny Garcia is all but officially set for November. Mike Coppinger of the Athletic broke the news.
While some details may change because of COVID-19, fans at least will have Errol Spence Jr.’s return on the horizon and Twitter-debates can rave on.
Errol, when healthy, is a top-ten P4P fighter and one of the heads of the Welterweight division. In September, 2019 he unified the WBC & IBF belts to defeat Shawn Porter, which led to encouraging signs of a possible Spence-Crawford matchup.
Unfortunately, Errol found himself in a self-inflicted DWI crash in his hometown of Dallas, Texas. In what is nothing short of a miracle, Errol Spence Jr. only suffered lacerations to his face and missing teeth; no broken bones. In fact, it was because he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, that he was ejected from his car and able to survive.
In the recent months, boxing fans have seen encouraging signs from Errol Spence Jr. and now we have a specific time frame to look forward to.
The elephant in the room for this November matchup will be Errol’s health-status. Is he going to be able to power through Danny Garcia’s lead hooks and body shots. The body shots might prove to be especially difficult to handle if Errol is either physically or mentally handicapped.
One must give Errol the benefit of the doubt. As the cash cow of the PBC Welterweights, one must imagine that all parties involved have taken great care in assuring that he is a full-go for his comeback.
In the other corner, this is somewhat of a crossroads fight for Danny Garcia (36-2). The former two division champion has close competitive losses to a prime Keith Thurman and Shawn Porter. Danny Garcia has battled his way back from these defeats to earn this current opportunity, but if he is unsuccessful, then there will surely be much in question regarding his future in boxing.
There have been discussions that Danny was already considering moving up to Junior Middleweight fairly soon regardless of his next Welterweight title opportunity. I would assume that if he were to lose a competitive fight with Errol Spence Jr. he could transition to 154 seamlessly and go to work from there. This would only be the case if the loss is competitive.
If Errol completely outclasses Danny, then I think the next most likely options would be a cash-out rematch with Keith Thurman or a sacrifice of Adrien Broner.
We must not get too far ahead of ourselves though. There is a lot of intrigue with the Spence-Garcia matchup. Danny’s lead left hook will be crucial for him to find success this November. It is very likely that Spence will utilize much movement to catch Danny flat footed, but Danny has the power and angles to limit that approach.
As we get closer to the date and more sparring and training videos come out we will get a better sense of where both fighters are heading into the matchup. Until then all we can do is once again say, “Thank You Al Haymon!”
What are your thoughts on this matchup? Is Errol Spence Jr. biting off more than he can chew in his comeback fight post-crash?
