Assuming Spence, 36, returns this year, he’ll be coming off a three-year layoff and a heavy defeat. He also hasn’t looked like the same fighter in his bouts following the 2019 car crash in Dallas.
“A lot of people felt that he was finished after the Bud fight. I totally disagree,” Plant said to Ring Champs. “Maybe some guys need a little break away from the sport.”
Spence has been out of the ring for an extended stretch, but Plant doesn’t see that as damage. He views it as a reset. In his mind, time away can sharpen a fighter rather than take something away. The detail Plant keeps going back to is Spence’s condition.
“He’s always lean,” Plant said. “That says he’s thinking different and doing different.”
That cuts through the usual questions about age and inactivity. Instead of guessing how Spence will look, Plant is reading 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 bout is finalized.
For Plant, that combination says more than anything else. Discipline outside the ring, paired with a willingness to take on difficult fights, isn’t the profile of a finished fighter.
Part of Spence’s past issues came from weight swings between fights. That’s one explanation for the dip. But it’s hard to ignore the car crash as well, and how that may have affected him physically.
Plant is betting the version coming back has corrected at least one of those problems.
That doesn’t guarantee anything once the bell rings. But it’s a different starting point than the one critics are judging him from.
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