Tim Bradley Thinks a Canelo Loss to Crawford Would Be More Damaging Than a Defeat to Benavidez

Tim Bradley says Terence Crawford is a “tougher” fight for Canelo Alvarez than if he were to fight David Benavidez. He states that Canelo losing to the smaller fighter, Crawford, who comes up two weight classes, would make him look bad.

The Crawford Versus Benavidez Risk

There would be less backlash for Canelo getting beaten by light heavyweight Benavidez because he’s bigger than him. Alvarez wouldn’t receive the same kind of criticism that he would if Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs) beats him.

It’s only obvious that Canelo’s career would be damaged more by a loss to Crawford than to Benavidez, due to the size, advanced age, and poor performance in his last fight.

Canelo (63-2-2, 39 KOs) defends his undisputed super middleweight championship against Canelo this Saturday, September 13, on Netflix at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

“I believe this fight is tougher on his career than Benavidez. Although Crawford is considered the best fighters in the world and has gained a lot of accolades over the years, if he loses to a dude that came up two weight classes and beat him, how is that going to look?” said Tim Bradley on his channel, creating a narrative that Canelo Alvarez stands to lose more getting beaten by Terence Crawford than he would if he lost to David Benavidez.

Bradley says Crawford is risk-taking with this fight to prove himself as #1 in the world. He believes that by Bud defeating Canelo, it would make him the best. That argument is riddled with holes for obvious reasons.

There are arguably younger, better fighters than Canelo at this point in his career that would remain out there that Crawford would need to beat for him to prove he’s the true #1. Just beating 35-year-old Alvarez wouldn’t be enough because he’s late in his 20-year career. Crawford picked out a fight against Canelo after he started to show signs of slippage, not before, when he was in his best years.

Crawford’s True Pound-for-Pound Test

In my view, Crawford would have to beat these guys to be considered #1 in the world:

• Dmitry Bivol
• David Benavidez
• Jaron Ennis
• Vergil Ortiz Jr.
• Janibek Alimkhanuly
• Artur Beterbiev
• Christian Mbilli
• David Morrell

If Crawford can’t beat those fighters, he doesn’t belong at #1 pound-for-pound. Those are the real tests for him, and if he doesn’t want to fight them, it’s an automatic forfeit. You don’t deserve to be #1 because you avoided the risk.

Bradley points out that it’s rare to have fights involving top fighters from different weight classes meeting. The reason there aren’t many is that the smaller fighters have problems when they make big weight jumps. In history, the rare instances where it’s been done successfully involved smaller fighters beating flawed bigger ones or winning controversial decisions.

For example, when Roy Jones Jr. moved up to heavyweight from 175, he picked the weakest link, John Ruiz, to fight for a world title rather than Lennox Lewis on March 1, 2023.