You don’t want to give a fighter like Terence Crawford any extra motivation to tap into his vaunted mean streak in the ring.
Yet, that’s perhaps exactly what Derrick James, Errol Spence’s trainer, might have done. Ahead of the Spence-Crawford fight for undisputed welterweight glory on July 29, James sat down with Showtime’s All Access and reviewed fight footage from Crawford’s November 2021 victory over Shawn Porter.
After giving his boxing evaluation of Crawford, James watches a clip of “Bud” and his mother doing a celebration dance after defeating Porter by 10th-round TKO. At that moment, James says: “She won’t be dancing on the 29. Don’t wear your dancing shoes, mama. You will not be dancing.”
We’ll see whether those comments are enough for Crawford to latch onto and use as a motivational factor enough to douse his already-high competitive streak with gasoline to help ignite an explosive performance.
Crawford and Spence have exchanged heavy mutual respect during their promotion, aside from “The Truth” vowing to smoke on “Bud” and Crawford promising to make the 29 a fish fry, playing up to Spence’s other nickname in the “Big Fish.”