Canelo Alvarez’s decision to begin talks with William Scull on January 10 for a potential fight in May puts Terence Crawford in a precarious position.
Four-division world champion Crawford had hoped to be the next opponent for 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 start thinking about fighting someone else to keep 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.
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 will likely not be available until the second half of 2025. So, if Crawford wants to fight him, he will have to sit on the shelf for extra time.
He had 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 for the Fundora match. It’s not the smartest thing Crawford could do, but if he’s not willing to risk being beaten by Murtazaliev, Bohachuk, Tszyu or Ennis, it’s understandable why he would choose to wait.
Most of those fights would require Turki Al-Shiekh to 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 either promoter to be willing to give him a massive guaranteed purse and hope the match sells.
As we saw in Terence’s last event against Israil Madrimov, he is not a PPV attraction. Therefore, Turki needs to get involved so that Crawford can fight any dangerous fighters at 154, such as Murtazaliev or Bohachuk. These would be tough fights for Crawford even when he was young, but now that he’s pushing 40, those fighters will be nightmares for him.
Uncontested At 154?
If Crawford was braveshould he take on IBF 154-lb champion Murtazaliev (23-0, 17 KOs) in a unification bout to put himself in position to challenge Fundora for the undisputed championship in the second half of 2025.
If Terence can capture the IBF belt, he can push Fundora to fight him. Becoming undisputed junior middleweight champion will 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 before, Canelo can’t be pushed in fights. He can 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.
