If Spence, 36, returns this year, he will follow a three-year layoff and a major defeat. He also didn’t look like the same fighter in his fights after the 2019 car crash in Dallas.
“A lot of people felt that he was done after the Bud fight. I totally disagree,” Plant told Ring Champs. “Maybe some guys need a little break from the sport.”
Spence was out of the ring for a long time, but Plant doesn’t see it as a detriment. He sees it as a reset. In his mind, time away can sharpen a fighter rather than take anything away. The detail Plant keeps going back to is Spence’s condition.
“He’s always skinny,” Plant said. “It says he thinks differently and acts differently.”
It cuts through the usual questions about age and inactivity. Instead of guessing what Spence will look like, Plant reads what’s already visible. Staying in shape year-round suggests preparation, not reaction.
Plant also backed Spence’s mindset on opposition, describing him as the type who doesn’t look for soft entries and would go straight into a tough fight with Tim Tszyu if that fight goes down.
For Plant, that combination says more than anything else. Discipline outside the ring, coupled with a willingness to take on tough fights, is not the profile of a finished fighter.
Part of Spence’s past problems have come from weight shifts between fights. This is one explanation for the dip. But it’s hard to ignore the car accident as well, and how it may have affected him physically.
Plant is betting that the version that comes back has fixed at least one of those problems.
It guarantees nothing once the bell rings. But that’s a different starting point than critics judge him by.
