A Gold Standard for $188,491: Will the Ring Magazine Mega-Belt Serve as Terence Crawford’s Final Triumph or a Stepping Stone to a Canelo Rematch?

Turki Alalshikh showed off the custom-made Ring Magazine Championship mega-belt today that will be given to the winner of Saturday’s fight between Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

The Price of The Belt

The mega-belt is valued at $188.491 and looks impressive. Some fans on social media are questioning why the Turki paid so much for the belt, as they don’t feel that the fight is worth the cost, given their advanced ages and decline. Neither of them looked golden last time out.  We can only hope that the Canelo-Crawford fight lives up to the hype about this contest.

Luring Crawford with Gold

If Crawford captures the new Ring mega-belt, it’s going to be up to Turki to try to lure him back with more gold than the price of the belt. Terence hasn’t said anything about wanting to hold onto the undisputed super middleweight championship to defend it against these two mandatory challengers:

• Osleys Iglesias: IBF
• Christian Mbilli: WBC

It would be nice for fans to see how Crawford would do against these two young apex predators. Beating an aging Canelo would be a nice win for Crawford’s legacy, but it would only be superficial due to how poor he’s looked in his recent fights. To really show something, Terence should test himself against Osleys, Mbilli, or, if he’s feeling really brave, David Benavidez. Let him get in with the young sharks and see how well he does.

The rematch with Canelo (63-2-2, 39 KOs) is the one that would entice Terence (41-0, 31 KOs) to return for an encore, but he may expect a big raise from the reported $50 million that he’s getting for Saturday’s fight. Will it be worth it? That’ll depend on how he looks against Alvarez in ‘The Fight of the Century.’

Alvarez’s Hard-Hitting Power

“Canelo checks a lot of boxes. He has better fight experience. He’s been in with better opponents, he hits harder, and he has a great chin,” said trainer Stephen Edwards to TheVIPcrew about Canelo Alvarez’s advantages over Terence Crawford. “He’s better at avoiding big punches. His defensive reflexes are a little bit better than Crawford’s.”

During Crawford’s career, he missed out on fighting a lot of the top guys. When he finally did have a chance to fight them at 154, he quickly took the Canelo fight after just one match in the division against Israil Madrimov. That fight showed that Crawford needed to take the Canelo fight quickly, because he didn’t look like he could stay above the waterline at junior middleweight against the maurading predators.

If Crawford had said, ‘Turki, let me collect all the belts at 154 first,’ it would have likely backfired on him with repeated losses.

“Crawford, in my opinion, has better stamina. He’s more agile and adjustable,” said Edwards. “For this fight, I think Bud is the fresher fighter. Canelo does just enough to win and put you in your place. He hits a guy with a couple of big shots early, and his opponent goes into survival mode. Canelo then tones it down and doesn’t go 100 miles an hour, and he goes to decision,” said Edwards.

Stephen mentions what many people have said about Crawford. Unlike Canelo, he’s never shown any issues with fading in his fights. He’s a mover and makes adjustments in terms of boxing, slugging, or changing stances. Canelo hasn’t gone for the knockout in his recent fights against William Scull, Edgar Berlanga, and Jaime Munguia. He may have realized that if he’d pushed the issue, he might have run out of gas in the process.