Errol Spence Jr. , America's best boxer, returns to the ring on December 5 againstDanny Garcia during aPremier Boxing Champions card on Fox.- It will be the first time Spence has fought since recovering from a car accident where he was ejected from his Ferrari after rolling it several times.
- Spence suffered multiple facial injuries but was discharged from intensive care in hospital with no broken bones. He was later charged by Dallas Police with a DWI [driving while intoxicated].
- Spence admitted during a virtual press conference that it took him a while to rediscover his groove in the
boxing gym. - He said he is now fully recovered and looking forward to defending his welterweight championship title against Garcia next month.
America's best boxer said it took three or four sparring sessions to return to normal after crashing his $300,000 Ferrari at high-speed last year.
"The first time I sparred it kinda felt weird … like, I feel real, real weird," Errol Spence Jr. told reporters during a virtual press conference last month.
Spence, 30, was rushed to hospital with "serious injuries" in October 2019 after his $300,000 Ferrari 488 Spider convertible "flipped multiple times," ejecting the fighter from the vehicle.
Spence survived the crash with no broken bones but six days after the incident, Dallas Police charged him with a DWI [driving while intoxicated], misdemeanor B, according to Dallas-Ft.Worth CBS.
He is still considered one of the finest boxers on the planet and Insider ranks him as the world's third-best boxer right now, behind only Naoya Inoue of Japan and the Mexican fighter Saul Alvarez.
The Texan returns to the ring against the former 147-pound world champion Danny Garcia on December 5 at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington during a Premier Boxing Champions card broadcast on Fox.
Though it will be more than a year since his last match, and despite recovering from a crash which temporarily disfigured him because of all the bumps, cuts, and bruises on his face, Spence said everything is now "back to normal."
Scroll through these photos to see how injured he looked on the hospital bed:
Spence said: "At probably like the third or fourth sparring session [back] everything started clicking and I feel sharp as a tack now.
"Everything's back to normal. I feel like I'll have no ring rust at all on December 5."
Spence said, if anything, the accident has made him more focused. "[It's] made me hungrier, gave me the same hunger that I had before I won the world title [against Kell Brook in Sheffield, England, in 2017].
"It just made me more focused, hungry, keep my weight down. Before I was coming to camp, training, when I had a fight lined up but now I'm actually training year-round and making it a priority, rather than just thinking, 'Okay, I got a fight now, I better start training ahead of time rather than just the last minute.'"
The crash is not changing Garcia's perception of Spence
Garcia told reporters at the same virtual press conference that Spence's accident has not affected how they are strategically preparing for the high-stakes fight, and still regard their opponent as the same champion as he was before.
"We're taking this fight … he's the champion, we're taking it 100% serious," Garcia said.
"We're not banking on no car accident or layoff or those types of things. We wanted this fight [earlier] but COVID happened, the world had to weather that storm, but now the fight's finally here.
"We're three and a half weeks away. The camp is going great and we're having a great performance."
Garcia's father and trainer Angel Garcia added: "We're not looking at the accident because we're not doctors. He's cleared by medical. His team says he's good, everybody else says he's good, so to us he's good.
"We can't worry about that. That doesn't make the fight better or worse. We're not thinking because he got into a car accident that we have the advantage. We're not falling for that booby-trap. That's a booby-trap," Angel Garcia said.
Spence's trainer, Derrick James, who also coaches Insider's No.7-ranked boxer Jermell Charlo, seemed to agree that the car accident would make no difference in the outcome of the fight next month even though he agreed with his fighter that it took a while for Spence to rediscover his groove in the gym.
"When he was getting back into the rhythm in the ring, he was still looking good, but there was a level of comfort that came in that made a difference," James said.
"You see him good on the first day spar to each day after that. When you get more comfortable, getting in the ring, back home, whatever, you see a difference.
"It's amazing, good, and you'll see December 5 how good he really is."
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