Canelo insists Crawford ‘would be easy fight’ but he wants big money

Canelo Alvarez says he saw enough of what Terence Crawford was about in his last fight against Israil Madrimov at 154 to know it would be an “easy fight” for him if they met at 168. However, Canelo reiterates that a fight with Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs) will only happen if his price is met, which he previously said was $150 million.

(Credit: Rey Del Rio/Premier Boxing Champions)

Crawford still hopes the Canelo fight will be next, but the only person on planet Earth who can deliver that golden parachute retirement payday for the Nebraska native is His Excellency Turki Alalshikh. The price tag for Alvarez may be too high even for him.

Whatever Canelo asks, Crawford will also want a sizable check, and it doesn’t balance out in the end. Assuming Turki gives Canelo the $150 million smackers, Crawford will probably want some of it, believing he’s worth $75 million. He’ll want to get his mouth watering with that cash, too.

Ultimately, this is not a Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao type of fight in which revenue would be drawn in large numbers. Mayweather-Pacquiao deserves it $600 million for their fight on May 2, 2015, but these two fighters were proven PPV attractions.

Crawford has never shown that this is a PPV draw. He only had one successful PPV event against Errol Spence in July 2023. That fight generated 700,000 buys. Before that, Crawford’s highest PPV fight was against Amir Khan, which brought in just 150,000 buys.

His Excellency Turki would be better off focusing on pitting Canelo against the winner of the Artur Beterbiev vs. Setting up Dmitry Bivol fight because it would have a better chance of bringing in revenue than a Canelo-Crawford fight.

“What we saw in his last fight with him (Israil Madrimov). That’s why there are weight classes. That’s what I think. It’s an easy fight for me,” Canelo Alvarez told the Manouk Akopyan YouTube channel when asked why he felt a fight between him and Terence Crawford would be easy.

Crawford did not look good at all in his debut at 154 on August 3 against WBA junior middleweight champion Israil Madrimov. He barely beat Madrimov, and looked weak, and very old at 36.

Unlike the 39-year-old Beterbiev, who is a massive puncher with an excellent inside game, Crawford is more of a speed fighter who wins by outboxing his opponents. Those types of fighters don’t do well when they hit their mid-30s, especially when they’re as inactive as Crawford.

“He moves a lot; he is a good fighter and a good boxer. He’s going to be complicated in the first three rounds or four rounds, but then I’ll figure him out, and that’s what I think,” Canelo said of how a potential fight with Crawford would play out.

Canelo can even get to Crawford with his power punches in the first two or three rounds because he won’t let him get jabbed from long range without countering. That’s all Crawford did against Madrimov: poke and move around, making it a boring chess match. Canelo won’t put up with that bland stuff without clocking Crawford.

“Could be, why not? We’re in boxing,” Canelo said when asked if he might fight Crawford, David Benavidez and the Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol fight winner can fight. “You already know. I already told you,” Canelo said of the asking price for him to agree to fight those guys. “You know the answer, mate.”

Canelo is saying here that he’s not going to entertain any of those fights unless he’s given $100 million to $200 million, and that doesn’t seem realistic. David Benavidez fights at 175, and he recently looked terrible in his debut at that weight class. He should not even act for discussion.