Terence Crawford calls his clash against Canelo Alvarez a “generational fight” that he believes will be “talked about for years” when they meet on September 13th in Las Vegas. Fans don’t see it that way.
Fans Disagree: “Junk Food” Fight
This fight is seen as junk food and will be forgotten immediately. Alvarez and Crawford are both old. The casuals who view this fight as similar to Sugar Ray Leonard moving up to middleweight to fight Marvin Hagler don’t know what they’re talking about. Crawford is nowhere near as talented as Sugar Ray, and Canelo is not on the level of Hagler, who fought Leonard.
They view it as odd, with Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs) going up a couple of divisions and given an immediate title shot against Alvarez (63-2-2, 39 KOs). It’s not the fight the boxing public asked for from Canelo. They weren’t pushing for the Mexican star to fight another smaller fighter, especially an old one nearing 40.
Some fans see this as a way for Canelo to avoid taking the difficult fights that they want to see him take against David Benavidez, Dmitry Bivol, and Artur Beterbiev. The 168-lb division has emptied out with Benavidez and David Morrell both moving up to 175. What’s left in the top four, Canelo has shown no interest in fighting. He’d rather face Crawford.
“I wanted to go from 147 to 168 just because I wanted to challenge myself, and that’s the joy of it,” said Terence Crawford to Ring Magazine about why he’s choosing to move up to super middleweight to get a straight title shot against undisputed champion Canelo Alvarez on September 13th.
Crawford is leaving out the part where he’s moving up for the money, because this isn’t really about challenging himself entirely. If he were about that, he’d have moved up to 168 and taken out the top contenders waiting in line for their well-deserved title shot.
If this were about challenging himself, Crawford would have shown that he’s worthy by beating these contenders at super middleweight
– Christian Mbilli
– Diego Pacheco
– Osleys Iglesias
– Caleb Plant
– Edgar Berlanga
“This is a legacy fight. This is a generational [money] fight. It will be talked about for years,” said Crawford. “I feel like I got the speed over Canelo. I got the reach over. He might have the size, the power [youth and toughness], but I got the better skills. Everybody is like, ‘Man, you’re crazy.’ Yeah. I’ve been fighting people bigger than me all my life. I’ve always been undersized, and I always came out on top,” said Crawford.
Terence’s Fading Skills, Canelo’s Gas Tank
The skills are pretty even. Crawford’s last fight against Israil Madrimov showed that he was outskilled and had to depend on his better engine to win a narrow decision.
Madrimov had the better technical ability than Crawford, but let the fight slip away in the championship rounds. Israil still deserved to win based on his harder, cleaner-landing shots through the eighth round. However, Terence was the A-side, so it was obvious why he got the win. I had it 8-4 for Madrimov. He looked like this era’s version of GGG, and he couldn’t miss with his right hands.
Canelo has good enough technical ability to win, but his gas tank is the one issue that could hold him back. If he fades after four rounds like we saw in his last three fights, Crawford can come on and steal it in the championship rounds like he did against Madrimov.
“Crawford, as great as he is, this is effectively a welterweight moving up to 168,” said Chris Mannix.
That’s correct. Crawford is essentially a welterweight, an old one that might not have enough left to beat Alvarez. Fighting once a year since 2020, it’s questionable whether Terence is going to be sharp enough to defeat Canelo. He looked like he had lost a lot from his fight against Errol Spence Jr. in 2023, in coming off a 13-month layoff to challenge Madrimov for his WBA junior middleweight title on August 3rd, 2024.
Last Updated on 05/25/2025
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