Spence/Porter unification now signed - $75 FOX PPV/Sky Sports

[powerpuncher]

Porters only chance is to make it rough. He will get shut out if he tries to box. He will get knocked out most likely if he tries to brawl, but at least he gives himself a small chance

[TitoFan]

Good thing Tim Bradley's retired. A fight between Porter and Bradley would've been like watching two bighorn rams fighting over a sheep.

Spence will probably end up with a cut or two, especially since Porter has already announced his intentions of headbutting. I hope the ref is on his toes for this one.

Spence by ugly decision, although I'd prefer a KTFO.

[TIC]

porter has faced good opponents but was lucky against ugas. porter is a good name for spence to have on his record. shawn will try to keep it competiive but i see a wide decision to spence.

[Fenster]

I haven't seen a single person pick Porter to win, for obvious reasons, it's basically a mismatch with fans/oddsmakers. However, it's a worthwhile fight as Porter is a name, even though he has no fans.

What does everyone think the PPV will do? 150-250k? Less or more?

[Fenster]

What happened to the Al Haymon/PBC/ITV deal? This is their second biggest fight of the year behind Pac-Thurman, which was ITV PPV, yet Sky/Eddie poached this one.

[powerpuncher]

I haven't seen a single person pick Porter to win, for obvious reasons, it's basically a mismatch with fans/oddsmakers. However, it's a worthwhile fight as Porter is a name, even though he has no fans.

What does everyone think the PPV will do? 150-250k? Less or more?

It’s one of those fights where Spence has to continue to prove that he is the top fighter at welterweight. Even though everyone is picking Spence to win, it’s part of the cleaning out the weight process.

[J_Undisputed]

I haven't seen a single person pick Porter to win, for obvious reasons, it's basically a mismatch with fans/oddsmakers. However, it's a worthwhile fight as Porter is a name, even though he has no fans.

What does everyone think the PPV will do? 150-250k? Less or more?

There's actually a few picks for porter to grind one out.(https://fightnews.com/surprising-spe...dictions/55701)

Manny Pacquiao: Spence W 12
Deontay Wilder: Spence UD 12
Andy Ruiz Jr: Porter SD 12
Gary Russell Jr: Porter SD 12
Thomas Hearns: Spence MD 12
Abner Mares: Porter SD 12
Mikey Garcia: Spence W 12
Keith Thurman: Spence W 12 / TKO
Angel Garcia: Porter W 12
Julian Williams: Spence W 12
Yordenis Ugas: Porter W 12
Evander Holyfield: Spence MD 12
Robert Guerrero: Porter SD 12
Erickson Lubin: Spence UD 12
Tony Harrison: Spence W 12
Jose Benavidez Sr: Porter SD 12
Paulie Malignaggi: Spence Late-TKO
Robert Easter Jr: Spence W 12
Ruben Guerrero: Porter W 12
Sergey Lipinets: Spence W 12
Robert Garcia: Spence W 12
Austin Trout: Porter SD 12
Caleb Truax: Spence UD 12
Sergio Mora: Porter W 12
Andre Berto: Spence W 12

I'm still not sold on Spence for a few reasons. I think most people picking porter are doing so as maybe wishful thinking in that the little guy that works hard beats the big guy that hasn't had great competition but is being crowned the heir apparent. I cant see Spence losing a decisions. At least not to Porter. Its a tall order, but what the hell, I'll root for Porter's application over Spence's potential. Maybe Spence will make a believer out of me.

[powerpuncher]

I haven't seen a single person pick Porter to win, for obvious reasons, it's basically a mismatch with fans/oddsmakers. However, it's a worthwhile fight as Porter is a name, even though he has no fans.

What does everyone think the PPV will do? 150-250k? Less or more?

There's actually a few picks for porter to grind one out.(https://fightnews.com/surprising-spe...dictions/55701)

Manny Pacquiao: Spence W 12
Deontay Wilder: Spence UD 12
Andy Ruiz Jr: Porter SD 12
Gary Russell Jr: Porter SD 12
Thomas Hearns: Spence MD 12
Abner Mares: Porter SD 12
Mikey Garcia: Spence W 12
Keith Thurman: Spence W 12 / TKO
Angel Garcia: Porter W 12
Julian Williams: Spence W 12
Yordenis Ugas: Porter W 12
Evander Holyfield: Spence MD 12
Robert Guerrero: Porter SD 12
Erickson Lubin: Spence UD 12
Tony Harrison: Spence W 12
Jose Benavidez Sr: Porter SD 12
Paulie Malignaggi: Spence Late-TKO
Robert Easter Jr: Spence W 12
Ruben Guerrero: Porter W 12
Sergey Lipinets: Spence W 12
Robert Garcia: Spence W 12
Austin Trout: Porter SD 12
Caleb Truax: Spence UD 12
Sergio Mora: Porter W 12
Andre Berto: Spence W 12

I'm still not sold on Spence for a few reasons. I think most people picking porter are doing so as maybe wishful thinking in that the little guy that works hard beats the big guy that hasn't had great competition but is being crowned the heir apparent. I cant see Spence losing a decisions. At least not to Porter. Its a tall order, but what the hell, I'll root for Porter's application over Spence's potential. Maybe Spence will make a believer out of me.

Spence’s biggest issue is that same issue as all good offensive fighters. You have to take big shots to give big shots. His weakness I think will be someone who is tough that can take a good punch and deliver them back. Maybe someone like Maidana.

[Master]

Winner of Spence vs. Porter still has a long way to go to make welterweight history

Perhaps the only thing rarer in professional sports than a welterweight title unification bout is a clever one-liner at a pre-game news conference.

On Saturday at Staples Center, unbeaten IBF champion Errol Spence Jr. and WBC champion Shawn Porter will meet in just the 11th unification in the division’s long and glorious history.

Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, the 1980s brawler from Youngstown, Ohio, who slugged his way into the International Boxing Hall of Fame, was speaking as frenetically as he used to punch about the bout.

“Oh man, I just love the fight,” Mancini, a part of the Fox Sports broadcast team for the fight, said. “Errol is so skilled. He’s on top of his game. But you can’t sleep on Shawn. No way. Shawn’s got that style that’s going to make it difficult on Errol. That’s why this is such a great fight.”

The bout is reminiscent in some ways of the 1980 classic between Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran, in which Leonard was perceived to be the elite and skillful boxer and Duran the aggressive, pressuring in-fighter.

Duran was able to lure Leonard into a gritty, down-and-dirty fight, much like Porter will try to execute against Spence.

“People know what to expect from Shawn,” his father/trainer, Kenny Porter, said. “He’s going to be there in front of Errol for three minutes a round for all 12 rounds.”

Porter’s style is by now so familiar that a number of experts threw out the same long-time boxing adage, “Pressure breaks pipes,” as a way of explaining how Porter can win the bout.

Spence, who from his earliest days as a pro has been compared to Leonard, isn’t buying it. He scoffed at the notion that Porter’s pressure will break him, or is even somehow effective.

“You fight like you drowning, and you can’t swim,” Spence said in the burn of the day to Porter.

The good-natured Porter laughed, but he had plenty of digs of his own. Spence is coming off a 12-round rout of Mikey Garcia in March in which he swept all 12 rounds.

Garcia was moving up in weight and never was able to seriously threaten Spence. Porter is an inch taller with an inch more reach than Garcia, but he’s a natural welterweight and a bull of a man. Porter is a physical specimen who Spence won’t be able to manhandle.

“He said he’s going to knock me out and he wants to hurt me and so on and so forth,” Porter said. “Well, he didn’t knock out 135-[pound] Mikey Garcia. If he couldn’t knock out 135 Mikey Garcia he ain’t knocking out 147-pound ‘Showtime’ Shawn Porter.”



Spence is a good finisher and has an 84-percent knockout ratio, winning 21 of his 25 bouts by KO or TKO. But he’s just now developing into a puncher. For much of his career, his knockouts came either against overmatched opponents or by sheer volume and punching accuracy. He’s such a sharp and precise puncher that he wears guys down as the fight progresses until they succumb and can’t take it any longer.

His trainer, Derrick James, believes the day is coming when Spence will be regarded as a knockout artist. Spence’s footwork is brilliant and he’s able to quickly get into position to throw punches, and his speed is above-average.

James, though, isn’t pushing Spence to finish Porter. A finish will come, he said, if Spence executes the things they worked on during camp.

“A finish is great, don’t get me wrong, but that’s not what my focus is,” James said. “There are things Porter does we feel we can take advantage of and I want Errol to do that. We have a pretty good understanding of Porter and what he likes to do and we’re ready for those things. Errol doesn’t have to go out there looking to knock him out. He just has to stick with the plan and do what we laid out and a knockout could come.”

Former welterweight champion Keith Thurman, who is working as an analyst for Fox Sports on the show, defeated Porter in a classic 2016 battle. He said Porter’s style is difficult and won’t be easy for Spence to figure out. But he said Porter will have to take risks to defeat Spence.

Thurman noted that Garcia didn’t take those risks in Dallas in March and was never in the fight. Spence fought basically on autopilot and kept Garcia at the end of his jab. Porter can’t win a fight with that mindset, Thurman said.

“I feel the less risk he takes, the more he puts Errol in the fight,” Thurman told Yahoo Sports. “He’s got to be that raging bull as much as he can and try to dog it out. Shawn’s the guy with 100 percent grit and he can’t afford just to fight at Errol’s pace.”

No matter who the winner will be, the facts of modern boxing mean that this 11th unification bout in welterweight history won’t decide all that much. Because after this, the winner will need to contend with WBA champion Manny Pacquiao and WBO champ Terence Crawford.

Spence never seems all that eager to fight Crawford, though he said several times this week that he expects the Crawford fight to happen sometime next year. If he wins, he’s eager for a shot at Pacquiao.

Pacquiao, though, isn’t so intent on a shot at him any time in the near future. Sean Gibbons, the president of Pacquiao’s MP Promotions, told Yahoo Sports that he suspected his next fight would come early next year against either Mikey Garcia or Danny Garcia. If Porter wins, “that’d be a nice fight.” Of Spence, all Gibbons would say is, “You know the Senator; he’s never ducked anyone and he’s certainly not afraid of Spence.”

But now, all that matters is whether or not Porter is afraid of him, and whether he is up for the challenge.

He said those who expect the bout to be a coronation of sorts for Spence are in for a disappointment.

“All my life, there have been critics telling me what I can’t do,” said Porter, who is making a name for himself as a boxing analyst on TV. “They tell me this guy is too big or that guy’s too good or this other guy is too smart or too fast, but here I am, the WBC champion of the world and on top of my game. If I listened to all of those people who doubted me along the way, who said in the amateurs I didn’t belong in there fighting Oleksandr Usyk until I went out there and beat him, I’d have quit a long time ago.

“But I believed in myself and I believed in my father and everything we have done together. It’s brought us together to this point where I think we’re about to open a lot of, lot of eyes and shock a lot of people.”

https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/win...181809303.html

[Baal]

Porters need to make Spence uncomfortable. Close, intelligent attack. Without suffocating his work. If he tries to box Spence, he is taken over. Spence will control distance and clearly win the judge's decision. The fight between Mario Barrios and Batiru Ahmedov is very intriguing

[J_Undisputed]

I haven't seen a single person pick Porter to win, for obvious reasons, it's basically a mismatch with fans/oddsmakers. However, it's a worthwhile fight as Porter is a name, even though he has no fans.

What does everyone think the PPV will do? 150-250k? Less or more?

There's actually a few picks for porter to grind one out.(https://fightnews.com/surprising-spe...dictions/55701)

Manny Pacquiao: Spence W 12
Deontay Wilder: Spence UD 12
Andy Ruiz Jr: Porter SD 12
Gary Russell Jr: Porter SD 12
Thomas Hearns: Spence MD 12
Abner Mares: Porter SD 12
Mikey Garcia: Spence W 12
Keith Thurman: Spence W 12 / TKO
Angel Garcia: Porter W 12
Julian Williams: Spence W 12
Yordenis Ugas: Porter W 12
Evander Holyfield: Spence MD 12
Robert Guerrero: Porter SD 12
Erickson Lubin: Spence UD 12
Tony Harrison: Spence W 12
Jose Benavidez Sr: Porter SD 12
Paulie Malignaggi: Spence Late-TKO
Robert Easter Jr: Spence W 12
Ruben Guerrero: Porter W 12
Sergey Lipinets: Spence W 12
Robert Garcia: Spence W 12
Austin Trout: Porter SD 12
Caleb Truax: Spence UD 12
Sergio Mora: Porter W 12
Andre Berto: Spence W 12

I'm still not sold on Spence for a few reasons. I think most people picking porter are doing so as maybe wishful thinking in that the little guy that works hard beats the big guy that hasn't had great competition but is being crowned the heir apparent. I cant see Spence losing a decisions. At least not to Porter. Its a tall order, but what the hell, I'll root for Porter's application over Spence's potential. Maybe Spence will make a believer out of me.

Spence’s biggest issue is that same issue as all good offensive fighters. You have to take big shots to give big shots. His weakness I think will be someone who is tough that can take a good punch and deliver them back. Maybe someone like Maidana.

From what i've seen of Spence, hes used to being the hunter. In fights with smaller fighters (Brooke and Garcia), whenever they came out like the cornered animals, they put in good work on Spence. I agree with you that Spence's focus on being an offensive fighter has put him in the way of some big shots. Its one of those cases when you say , if this guy added some head movement or speed, he'd be hard to beat or stop. I don't think he wants to. He wants to stalk, he wants to walk his opponents into traps. It's easy to be calm when you're the hunter and you're in control due to your power. You're the bigger stronger guy and you know these guys probably can't hurt you, so you bide your time and walk them into a trap where they cant get away. They have two choice, try to back you off but theyre not powerful enough or get on their bike and try to pick a few battles and lose big on the cards.

The problem here is that while Porter is still a smaller yet broader welterweight, Spence is a big welter. I've never rated Porter a big puncher. Battering a waif-y malignaggi from pillar to post didn't win me over much. Part of that problem is mechanics, Porter's style doesnt only smother his opponents work, it smothers his own, so winging elbows to land stubby hooks is his best weapon but he's not getting full power on those shots (like say someone like tyson did) because he's not incorporating his legs. So while i think Spence may catch a few inside the Porter tornado if he gets bulled back to the ropes, i dont see any debilitating shots landing. So its easy enough for his corner to say, tie him up and after the ref separates you, catch him coming in. I like some of the work Porters put in for this camp. Especially, as far as Stepping to the side and using angles to keep from sitting in the pocket after the initial exchanges. Shawns always impressed me by how he's constantly embraced something out of his comfort zone and adding things to his repertoire. Shawns problem is he sometimes loses his focus and brawls and mauls on instinct. Like a lunch pail guy walking back into a mill after lunch or a smoke. I'll grind it out till 5pm.. another hard days work. That's how he got caught against broner. There are some fine tuning adjustments, that could turn this guy into the smaller hybrid tysonesque fighter that pazienza never quite became, if Porter ever decided to embrace a change in style.

[Kirkland Laing]

Fuck Round One and Molina is a shambling drunk. Lopez looks shot to fuck as well but still infinitely better than Molina. Amazing Molina is fighting.

[TitoFan]

Evening Kirk. Just settling in to see what's up.

[TitoFan]

Site a bit slow again....

[TitoFan]

Fuck Round One and Molina is a shambling drunk. Lopez looks shot to fuck as well but still infinitely better than Molina. Amazing Molina is fighting.

Yes... the little I've seen so far and Molina does look like shit.