On the evening of August 4th, a big boxing evening will take place in Los Angeles (USA). The main event will feature one of the leaders of the P4P rankings, Terence Crawford, who will fight in a new weight class – junior middleweight. Crawford will share the ring with undefeated Israil Madrimov from Uzbekistan, who holds the WBA belt. For Terence, this is an excellent opportunity to take the championship belt in his fourth weight class and test himself in fights with bigger opponents, because after the fight with Madrimov, Terence wants to have a super fight with the absolute world champion in super middleweight, Saul Alvarez.
Crawford goes for the world champion belt in the fourth weight class:
The best boxer in the world is back. Crawford went to conquer the fourth division
“Right now I want the fight that makes the most sense to me, and that’s definitely not Ennis. A fight with Canelo will be much more beneficial to my legacy and my bank account. After all, in the end, when boxing is over, what will we have left? I will have a legacy that people will talk about for centuries,” MMA Fighting quotes Crawford as saying.
The Crawford-Canelo fight is perhaps the best thing that can be put together in modern boxing, along with the Fury-Usyk rematch and the Bivol-Beterbiev fight. The first undisputed two-weight champion of the four-belt era, Terence Crawford, is looking for truly historic fights, and the Alvarez four-belt fight is the most appealing.
Canelo has made a name for himself for a long time; every fight of the Mexican is a real event in the boxing world. Although lately Saul has been avoiding serious opposition, not fighting David Benavidez, not seeking a rematch with Bivol, but simply defending his belts with the challengers of his choice. By the way, Canelo spoke about the fight with Crawford.
“Yes, it’s a lot of money, but they will criticize me,” Alvarez said about the fight with Crawford in an interview with Box Azteca. – They love it. They criticized me for fighting Jermell Charlo, who went up to a bigger weight than me because I’m small for those weights. And now let’s imagine Crawford from welterweight to super middleweight. I won’t win anything, I’ll only lose if I fight him next, because everyone will say that I was too small if I beat him.”
Of course, there is some logic in this: Canelo is risking his belts and reputation. And, apparently, not without reason. Saul has not shown the kind of boxing that his fans expect from him for a long time. It seems that Alvarez was simply “fed up” with boxing, let’s take his last fight with Munguia: yes, Canelo won and retained the belts, but he had no desire to box. In fights with not the strongest contenders, Saul wins due to the experience and baggage that he certainly has. But Canelo is far from his optimal condition: after the defeat to Bivol, all of Saul’s victories were by judge’s decision. He stopped chasing knockouts, stopped working in an aggressive style, his speed disappeared: in fights with the conditional Charlo, who clearly did not rise for belts, but for a check, Canelo can win on foot. But this will not work in fights with serious opponents, which is why Saul avoids, for example, Benavidez.
Canelo did not shine in his last fight:
Canelo won. But the elderly Mexican can no longer fight against the top.
Crawford is clearly more motivated than Alvarez, and his last fight against Errol Spence, in which Terence simply declassified his undefeated opponent, shows that even at 36, Crawford is in excellent shape. Speed, technique, boxing intelligence – everything was at such a level that, it would seem, Terence is simply unreachable at the moment. Yes, Crawford will have to gain weight and jump two weight classes, although he has not even fought at junior middleweight yet. And the advantage in physical power will be on Canelo’s side. But that’s probably all. By the way, Saul is only two centimeters taller than Terence, and in terms of arm span he is completely inferior to the American. So all the talk about dimensions is not so serious.
Crawford is in better shape, has no motivation problems and is aiming for a historic third place overall. And, even though Terence will have to box three weight classes higher, this should not be a problem for the American. But first, Crawford needs to take the junior middleweight belt from Israil Madrimov, after which we can talk about a fight with Canelo. After all, it was from this division that Jermell Charlo moved up to Alvarez and even went the full distance with Saul – Crawford is clearly capable of more.
