Terence Crawford says he was planning to brawl from the get-go against Errol Spence Jr. before he was convinced otherwise.

The undisputed welterweight champion from Omaha, Nebraska, ultimately decided to pursue a more methodical, circumspect strategy, using his jab and fighting out of the southpaw stance.

Crawford scored three knockdowns en route to stopping Spence in the ninth round of their high-profile fight last month at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

In an interview with Shawn Porter on The Porter Way Podcast, Crawford said that in the moments before the fight, when he was still in the locker room, his mind was “racing” on how to approach Spence in the early rounds. After contemplating using a more aggressive tactic, Crawford said he settled on boxing after a brief conversation with one of his team members and lightweight contender Shakur Stevenson.

“In my mind I wanted to fight,” Crawford said. “But given the circumstances—he (Spence) haven’t had nobody that … got the confidence to go out there and be like, ‘OK, alright, lemme see how you gon take a punch to the chin. Lemme see how you gon’ take a punch to the body. Lemme see how you gon’ react when you can’t react somebody around.’ My mind was, you know what I mean, it was racing a little bit. ‘Man, how should I come out.’ And, man, it was like, ‘just come out boxing. That’s it. Just come out boxing, using your jab. You got one of the greatest jabs that’s never really talked about because they always giving people credit about their abilities and they miss yours.’

“Kind of like the Viktor Postol fight. Everybody was talking about how well Viktor Postol jabbed, but nobody was talking about how well I jabbed. So, you know, Shakur and everybody was like, ‘Just box. Just come out boxing, being you.’ ‘Y’all right.’ Because I was gonna come out fighting. But given the circumstances, Errol not having fought too many southpaws, I was like, ‘OK, I’mma come out southpaw right out the gate.’”

Sean Nam is the author of Murder on Federal Street: Tyrone Everett, the Black Mafia, and the Last Golden Age of Philadelphia Boxing.