If you asked a fan of Errol Spence to pinpoint his strengths as a fighter, he or she might be hard pressed to come up with an answer.
Spence is a gifted athlete with the ability to hurt any opponent but he’s not as fast as, say, Gary Russell Jr. or as powerful as Gervonta Davis. So what is it that has allowed him to remain unbeaten and climb the pound-for-pound lists?
His ring acumen, according to trainer Derrick James, who will be in Spence’s corner when he faces Yordenis Ugas in a pay-per-view welterweight title-unification bout Saturday in Arlington, Texas.
“His thinking ability, his ability to think on the fly, his ability to create scenarios, his ability to capitalize,” James said when he was asked what has made Spence (27-0, 21 KOs) successful. “It’s all mental, the way his brain works with his physicality, the way he can be in the right place at the right time or not be at the place the other person wants him to be.
“… A lot of people think he’s boring. They don’t see it because it’s so subtle, the small movements, the things he does. The thing you can’t see is that it’s mental.”
What about the physical part?
One question that hovers over Spence since his horrific car accident in October 2019 and detached retina last year is whether he’s the same fighter who beat the likes of Kell Brook, Mikey Garcia and Shawn Porter before the crash.
James said, “Yeah, from my perspective, he looks great,” but he then implied that Spence might not need to be 100% physically. It goes back to his mind.
“Even though you’re asking me about him physically, I’ll say that mentally he’s stronger,” James said. “Because even if physically there are things he can’t do, he won’t show it. It’s all mental. … If there’s something he’s having an issue with, you won’t see it.
“He will have worked through it mentally so that he’s not showing what might be ailing him.”
Spence, 32, also seems to be more focused than ever.
The accident and injury made it clear to him that everything he has worked for, everything he has, can be gone in an instant. He no longer takes anything for granted, which has had an impact on his discipline.
For example, he had the bad habit of ballooning to the size of a cruiserweight between fights. That’s not the case now. Spence has fought only once since the accident – a unanimous-decision victory over Danny Garcia in December 2020 – but he has been working out year round and changed his diet for the better.
James believes that will allow Spence to be at his physical peak – whatever that is – when he enters to ring to fight Ugas. His mind will take care of the rest.
“Floyd Mayweather used to go one, two years without fighting but his timing was always pristine because he trained for six months,” James said. “… That’s the true adage of boxing: You’re a boxer all the time, you train for a fight for a couple of months.
“You focus on being better, on working out all the kinks and everything else so that on fight night you see something perfect, you see something great.”
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