There are 83 days until Sept. 13, 82 more than I need to be ready to watch Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford battle for the undisputed super middleweight title at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
They’re two of the best fighters I’ve ever seen, right up there with anyone who ever earned a paycheck to concuss another man.
Fittingly, it headlines the first official card of what a wise guy might call the post–‘Tom & Jerry’ era, but more on that shortly.
This will be no Tom & Jerry fight, as Turki Alalshikh has coined them: Mismatches in which one boxer — ahem, William Scull — has little interest in winning and a lot of interest in returning home with his facial features relatively intact.
Canelo and Bud could be this generation’s Leonard-Duran, their styles so brilliant and the stakes so significant.
But to properly understand how this all came about, we need to go back to July 29, 2023, when Crawford walked into the ring as one of the best fighters of his era and walked out as something closer to untouchable.
He made the great Errol Spence Jr. — a pound-for-pound stalwart, a potential Hall of Famer — look like the latest addition to the Bum of the Month Club. Crawford won the undisputed welterweight championship that night, stopping Spence in nine shockingly one-sided rounds that felt more like an execution than a contest.
Watching it unfold, one thought kept returning: the only guy who might make a competitive fight with Crawford right now is Canelo.
Spence had entered the bout as a generational talent and left looking like the loser of a bar brawl over who’s next on the pool table at Duke’s down on South Main.
His nose and mouth were leaking, and his eyes were glazed like an undrafted free agent tackle trying to block T.J. Watt on 3rd-and-22.
Crawford looked as if he’d exerted just enough energy to bring the groceries from the garage into the kitchen before opening the Ruffles.
Crawford had just performed a surgical dismantling of the top dog at 147, but two months later, we were back to the Tom & Jerry fights. Jermell Charlo signed the contract, but his actions showed he wanted no part of fighting Canelo.
Charlo was petrified by Alvarez and clearly had little interest in ending up looking like Spence did after he fought Crawford.
Alvarez won in a walk, but it was about as fun as colonoscopy prep.
I asked Alvarez at the post-fight news conference that night if he’d consider fighting Crawford.
I got the look.
If you’ve been around Canelo during fight week, you know it. Dead eyes, and an expression that said how dare you ask me that?
Leigh Dawney/Queensberry Promotions
Terence Crawford (L) and Canelo Alvarez square off.
Ask him before a fight about fighting someone else and you’ll see what I mean.But after he waltzed past Charlo, I couldn’t forget what Crawford had done to Spence. I had to write something and since the fight with Charlo really sucked — Tom & Jerry fights usually do — I figured discussing the possibility of Canelo versus Crawford might be worth throwing out there.
I asked and, yep, I got the look.
Canelo doesn’t like to be asked about future opponents, either before or after a fight. There’s usually not a great time to ask him, because it’s hard to catch up with him on those fancy golf courses he frequents in the rare times he doesn’t have a bout on his plate.
Ask him who he wants next before a fight, and he’ll invariably tell you he’s focusing on this one.
Ask him after a fight is over and he’ll ask you to let him enjoy the one he just completed.
So there’s really no good time to ask, but that night, after watching Charlo question his career choices for 36 minutes, asking Canelo if he’d consider fighting Crawford seemed more appealing.
I figured fans would enjoy debating it and to his credit, Canelo didn’t totally dodge the question. He did plead to be allowed to enjoy the win over Charlo (🙄 as if that were Hagler over Hearns).
“You know, I always say that if a fight makes sense, why not?” Alvarez said. “... Like I said, maybe, but I don’t really know. Right now, I’m just going to enjoy this fight and, please, just let me enjoy this fight.”
In less than three months, we’ll all get to enjoy this fight. It’s a showdown between two of the world’s best, with legacy and history on the line.
Crawford will become the first fighter in the four-belt era to be undisputed in three weight classes, if he wins.
Boxing’s sanctioning bodies have made titles nearly meaningless by handing out so many. They have champions, interim champions, super champions and champions in recess (And if you ask Teofimo Lopez, email champions).
The volume has diminished the meaning of a title belt.
Crawford has made what could be meaningless baubles significant by collecting them all in a weight class before moving on.
Crawford has rarely gotten the acclaim he deserves, but he got it the other day from an unlikely source.
On Sunday at a news conference in New York, Canelo and Crawford posed for the cameras, and started bumping chests before Canelo very lightly shoved Crawford.
It seemed out of character, but maybe Alvarez was trying to add a little pizzaz.
But it was what he said two days earlier, at the kickoff in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that said it all.
Canelo said he thinks Crawford is better than Floyd Mayweather, who ended his career 50-0 and goes by the nickname, “TBE,” for the best ever.
He’s not, by the way. That would be Sugar Ray Robinson. But Mayweather is among the Top 20 or 25 boxers who ever lived.
He schooled Alvarez in a 2013 fight, a loss Alvarez took to heart and spent years trying to erase from memory by elevating his own game on many of the lessons Mayweather taught.
It wasn’t insignificant when Alvarez placed Crawford ahead of Mayweather. It felt like an acknowledgement of a new, perhaps more difficult, challenge.
“I think Crawford is better than Mayweather because he turns his guard to both sides,” Alvarez said. “He’s more intelligent. I think he’s better than Floyd Mayweather. That’s what I think.”
Mayweather was a genius in the ring, and he let you know it constantly.
It’s only been more recently that Crawford has gotten the spotlight that his greatness demands.
Crawford’s greatness has always been there. The spotlight finally caught up to him.
He’s beaten 14 former champions. But on Sept. 13, he’ll try to beat one who’s still on top — a global icon, a four-division champion, and the face of modern boxing.
If he pulls it off? The post-fight debate won’t be whether Crawford is one of the best of his era.
It’ll be where he ranks among the best of all time.
File photo
Canelo Alvarez will defend the undisputed super middleweight world title against Terence Crawford on Sept. 13 in Las Vegas.