Terence Crawford says he should have been in this position, getting the Canelo Alvarez fight, “a long time ago,” but people didn’t want him to have this opportunity. It was only through the help of Turki Alalshikh that he was given the chance to fight Canelo (63-2-2, 39 KOs) for his undisputed super middleweight championship this Saturday, September 13.
Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs) doesn’t say who the “people” were that didn’t want him to fight Canelo. He also didn’t mention why he hadn’t moved up to the super middleweight title to work his way to a title shot against Canelo “a long time ago” when David Benavidez and David Morrell were still in the division, wreaking havoc.
If Crawford moved up to 168 and defeated Benavidez and Morrell, it would be understandable for him to say “people” didn’t want him to fight Canelo. However, for him to make that argument when he was campaigning at 147, three divisions below him, sounds baseless.
Crawford’s Bitterness
Why did Crawford choose to stay at 147 rather than jump up to 168 to earn the fight with Canelo instead of waiting for Turki to give it to him? Did he have an unrealistic sense of entitlement, perhaps? The only one holding Crawford back was himself, by not moving up to super middleweight to get in line like the other hard workers, and go through the gauntlet to meet with King Canelo.
“I should have been here a long time ago, but it’s great to get to know where I should have been,” said Terence Crawford to Ring Magazine, making a cryptic comment about his fight coming up against Canelo Alvarez on Saturday.
This isn’t where Crawford should have been because he didn’t earn the title fight against the undisputed super middleweight champion, Canelo. He didn’t have to fight any of the contenders at 168 to earn the fight against Alvarez for his four belts.
In this world, you have to earn things, and the reason Crawford didn’t get the Canelo fight “A long time ago” was that he never chose to move up to 168 to earn it the old-fashioned way.
For Crawford to be in a position to fight Canelo for all the marbles at 168, he would have had to defeat these contenders to get in that spot: Christian Mbilli, Osleys Iglesias, Hamzah Sheeraz, and Diego Pacheco.
Circumventing the System
Instead, Turki Alalshikh has given Crawford the fight with Canelo. In other words, Crawford is taking the back door to the top, circumventing the normal contender route that might have weeded him out.
“I’m going to go out there and do my thing and become a three-time undisputed champion of the world,” said Crawford. “People didn’t want it for me [to fight Canelo]. It’s not that it couldn’t happen. They didn’t want it to happen, and Turki made it happen, him and Riyadh Season.”
It wasn’t that “people” didn’t want Crawford to fight Canelo. It was a situation where Crawford was fighting at 147 and then 154, whereas Canelo was two divisions above him at 168. Why would anyone think of a fight between Crawford and Canelo when they were two to three divisions apart?
It sounds like Terence isn’t seeing things clearly. Fighters normally compete in individual weight classes, and freak fights rarely happen between fighters 2 to 3 divisions apart. For Crawford to be bitter-sounding, talking about people not wanting “it to happen,” he comes across as if he had expected preferential treatment to be given a mega-fight that he didn’t deserve.
The Real Contenders
There wouldn’t have been an issue if Crawford had done the hard work, moved up to 168, and defeated these three top contenders to earn the Canelo fight:
- Christian Mbilli: WBC mandatory
- Osleys Iglesias: IBF mandatory
- Jose Armando Resendiz: WBA interim
Last Updated on 09/09/2025
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