Canelo Alvarez’s decision to start talks with William Scull on January 10th for a potential fight in May puts Terence Crawford in an uncertain position.
The four-division world champion Crawford hoped to be the next opponent for the unified super middleweight champion Canelo (62-2-2, 39 KOs), but it looks like he won’t get that mega-money fight.
Crawford’s Options
Terence, 37, will now have to begin thinking about fighting someone else to stay busy while he waits. He hopes that Canelo will grant him a payday in September. I don’t know if he will then, but you can understand why Crawford would believe it would happen.
If Crawford doesn’t retire, these would be his best options for legacy and money purposes:
– Sebastian Fundora
– Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis
– Tim Tszyu
– Serhii Bohachuk
– Bakhram Murtazaliev
Fundora will be busy with his expected title defense against Errol Spence and probably won’t be available until the second half of 2025. So, if Crawford wants to fight him, he’ll have to sit on the shelf for additional time.
He’s already been out of action since his narrow win over Israil Madrimov on August 3rd. We’re probably looking at Crawford being out of the ring for about a year and a half if he chooses to wait on the Fundora match. That’s not the smartest thing Crawford can do, but if he’s unwilling to risk getting beaten by Murtazaliev, Bohachuk, Tszyu, or Ennis, it’s understandable why he would choose to wait.
Most of those fights would require that Turki Al-Shiekh finance them for Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs) to be willing to take on any of those guys. He’s not a PPV guy for one of the promoters to be willing to give him a massive guaranteed purse and hope that the match sells.
As we saw in Terence’s last event against Israil Madrimov, he’s not a PPV attraction. That’s why Turki must get involved so that Crawford can fight any dangerous fighters at 154, like Murtazaliev or Bohachuk. Those would be tough fights for Crawford even if he were young, but now that he’s pushing 40, those fighters would be nightmares for him.
Undisputed At 154?
If Crawford were brave, he’d take on IBF 154-lb champion Murtazaliev (23-0, 17 KOs) in a unification match to put himself in position to face Fundora for the undisputed championship in the second half of 2025.
If Terence can capture the IBF belt, he can pressure Fundora to fight him. Becoming undisputed champion at junior middleweight would raise Crawford’s stock in the boxing world, which could help him get the Canelo fight.
It still wouldn’t be a given that Bud would get the fight because, as we’ve seen previously, Canelo can’t be pressured into fights. He could ignore Crawford for the rest of his career, like he did with David Benavidez, and he won’t lose any sleep over the criticism he receives from fans.
Read the full article here
