It also exposed how access to championships at super middleweight drifted away from normal sporting practice.
Crawford entered the division without a single previous fight at 168 pounds and without going through his active competitor pool. Fighters such as Christian Mbilli, Osleys Iglesias, Lester Martinez, Diego Pacheco and Hamzah Sheeraz stayed in line without receiving title opportunities or knockouts, no one was knocked out, displaced or filtered out, with the contenders instead completely bypassed.
This was significant because the division itself was not competitively cleared. Alvarez has held the undisputed title since 2021 without facing David Benavidez or David Morrell during their time at super middleweight, nor the next wave of contenders pushing up. The championship remained intact but largely insulated from the division’s current risk.
Sportingly, Crawford did not achieve a position in the super middleweight system before challenging for his title. He gained direct entry to the summit without competing within the weight class. It sits outside the ordinary path in a sport built on leaderboards, eliminators and progressive sorting.
The award prioritized the historical composition of belts and the identity of the champion in question, and placed less emphasis on division navigation or sustained contender pressure than qualifying measures.
That choice also reflects a broader shift in how elite fights are now organized. Championship belts function less as checkpoints and more as assets traveling with established names. Entry is negotiated at the top of the sport rather than earned through its internal ladder.
In that environment, Crawford’s jump fit the commercial logic that drives modern superfights, even if it deviated from longstanding sporting conventions. The battle was first treated as an event, with the division serving as the backdrop. The Ring’s choice followed that logic, placing more weight on the size of the event than on how the fight was achieved.
The award clarified the standard applied without resolving the underlying debate. In the current super fight economy, process has become optional. Outcome and star alignment determine the rest.
