Why Terence Crawford is playing the long game for a chance to face Canelo
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Mike Coppinger, ESPN Boxing Insider
TERENCE CRAWFORD HAS spent a lot of time waiting. Specifically, he has waited for a fight — any fight — but especially the big one. The marquee matchup fans desperately clamored for — perhaps more than any other in boxing — pitted Crawford against Errol Spence Jr., two undefeated welterweights who circled each other for years. At long last, the bout materialized in July 2023 in Las Vegas, one of the most heavily anticipated fights in years for ardent boxing supporters.
Mark Wahlberg was ringside. So, too, were Mike Tyson, Chance the Rapper, Cardi B, Lil Jon and Chris Brown.
Arguably the biggest star of all in attendance was Eminem, a longtime fan of Crawford’s. Marshall Mathers hyped up Crawford before he made his ring walk to the rap star’s “Lose Yourself.”
This was big-time boxing at its finest in the world’s fight capital as anticipation filled the air for the 147-pound summit meeting, once viewed as an even matchup. It turned out to be anything but as Crawford sent Spence to the canvas three times en route to a ninth-round TKO victory to capture the undisputed welterweight championship.
“Bud” Crawford has always competed with a chip on his shoulder. After all, he wasn’t an Olympian and didn’t have the backing of a major promoter until his 14th pro fight, when he signed with Top Rank.
And as a fighter who never left his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, Crawford flew under the radar. But he was confident in his greatness and anxious to show the world his special talent; he simply needed a fellow elite opponent such as Spence to truly showcase his skills.
Like Crawford, Spence was rated in ESPN’s top five pound-for-pound rankings but emerged from the beatdown with his face badly swollen and disfigured. Crawford, meanwhile, barely had a scratch on him. Spence quickly exercised the rematch clause, tying Crawford into an immediate return bout, but it never happened.
Instead, Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs) waited for another fight that would earn him the sort of lucrative, eight-figure payday he believes he deserves. And as Crawford waited for the Spence rematch to be scheduled, he missed the window to truly capitalize on the momentum of his career-defining performance.
Crawford turns 37 next month and doesn’t want to fight more than two or three more times. What he seeks is a showdown with boxing’s top star, Canelo Alvarez, that could cement both his legacy and his finances for life. With the backing of Turki Alalshikh, the chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, Crawford is poised to capitalize and cash in if he can dethrone WBA junior middleweight champion Ismail Madrimov in convincing fashion Saturday in Los Angeles (ESPN+ pay-per-view, 6 p.m. ET).
Crawford’s first fight since July 2023 headlines the first Riyadh Season boxing event outside Saudi Arabia. And the man behind it all, Alalshikh, promises to ensure Crawford won’t wait anymore.
“No one delivered a good fight for him,” Alalshikh told ESPN. “When you reach this time of age and glory, you pick your fights. If they give you the right money and the right fighters, you will take it. No one gave him that in the last four years.
” … And I think this is a shame because we lost four years with one of the best talents in boxing we’ve seen in the last 20 years. We could have at least seen four or five more fights from him in the last four years.”
The last year Crawford stepped inside the ropes more than once: 2019. He has fought once in each of the previous four years.
Inactivity is one of boxing’s most nagging issues; talks often stall as fighters and promoters joust at the negotiating table. And it’s the boxers who pay the price, even if they alongside their managers are often equally at fault as the promoters; they simply can’t stay as sharp as possible as they grow older.
“[Crawford] wants so much money, so you have to really wait for the golden ticket to come around the carousel,” Madrimov’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, told ESPN on Wednesday as the fighters held a public workout at the Santa Monica Pier. “And that’s a problem with a lot of these top fighters, is they’re on so much money they could only fight once a year.
“So sooner or later that’s going to catch up with him. He’s a big favorite in the fight this week, but you never know. All of a sudden you look a bit rusty. Maybe you get a little bit old. Maybe you go up one division too far. But he’s a quality fighter. I mean pound-for-pound No. 1 in my opinion.”
CRAWFORD CLIMBED TO the top spot in ESPN’s pound-for-pound rankings with his performance against Spence, the best Crawford has ever looked in his illustrious career.
The switch-hitting boxer set the tempo when he floored Spence in Round 2, a straight left to the head, followed by a right jab from the southpaw stance.
Crawford continued to apply pressure as he busted up Spence around both eyes. Two more knockdowns in Round 7 led to the stoppage two rounds later as Crawford eyed his potential next opponent.
Jermell Charlo was the undisputed champion at 154 pounds and was ringside to support Spence, his then-training partner. And as the referee waved off the bout, Crawford made sure to deliver a steely glare through the ropes. However, two months later, Charlo was routed by Canelo at 168 pounds. and the fight with Crawford was no longer as appealing.
“I was prepared to do the rematch. I don’t know if Spence was prepared to do the rematch. … Like the contract stated, it didn’t happen. It cost me months of my career and I’m just happy to be getting back in the ring to display my talent, my skills.”
Terence Crawford
Still, there were other appetizing fights for Crawford at 154. Jaron “Boots” Ennis; Tim Tszyu; Vergil Ortiz. All three fighters are big, powerful punchers; each was undefeated at the time. Crawford had decided to campaign at junior middleweight moving forward, after the weight cut for the Spence bout was far more taxing than usual. Ahead of the fight, Crawford already knew it was his last at 147 pounds.
“I was like, man, this is it,” Crawford said. “I can’t make that weight like that no more. It was kind of hard.”
Spence officially exercised his rematch clause on Aug. 28 (he had 30 days after the fight) and said in his postfight interview that he wanted the return bout at 154 pounds. Contractually, the winner of the first bout earned the right to pick the weight for the rematch.
The contract also stipulated that the rematch must occur before the end of 2023. However, as the months went by, Crawford and his team attempted to schedule the rematch, to no avail.
On Jan. 2, Crawford’s attorney, Harrison Whitman, emailed Spence, an attorney for Haymon Boxing (Spence’s advisor) and Tom Brown (the promoter of PBC events). Crawford was copied.
The communication laid out that in the event of injury, the rematch could contractually be postponed no later than Feb. 24, 2024 (210 days after the fight).
“Mr. Crawford is a man of principle and remains open to a rematch with Mr. Spence,” Whitman wrote. “To that end, we need to know by the end of this week if Mr. Spence wants the rematch next, and if so, we need to discuss a structure for the rematch immediately.”
Brown responded on Jan. 5 that Spence was looking forward to the rematch but needed to wait for medical clearance following a planned procedure the following week. Brown expected an update from the doctor within the next seven to 10 days.
“Once we receive word, we’ll let you know so we can begin to plan the details for the rematch,” Brown wrote.
On Jan. 9, Spence posted a video on social media from a wheelchair with his right eye bandaged and revealed he underwent cataract surgery. The recovery timeline was approximately eight weeks, ensuring he wouldn’t be fit to start training camp until well after the rematch clause expired.
Crawford had to move on.
“I was prepared to do the rematch,” Crawford said. “I don’t know if Spence was prepared to do the rematch. … Like the contract stated, it didn’t happen. It cost me months of my career and I’m just happy to be getting back in the ring to display my talent, my skills.”
WHILE CRAWFORD WAS now able to schedule a fight other than the Spence rematch, he missed out on precious time and the opportunity to fight once more in 2023. Crawford was on the heels of a career-best performance, a fight where he earned tens of millions of dollars and entered the mainstream sports discussion.
The time was never better for Crawford to finally fight twice in one year.
“It definitely was frustrating given the momentum that I had coming off of that fight,” Crawford said. “Everybody wanted to see me fight. Everybody wanted to see me back in the ring. And you hearing all the things that wasn’t true about me and Spence, that I didn’t want to fight him at 154, that I was scared, and these are the things that were frustrating. I was the one before trying to make the fight happen.
“Turki had hit me up and asked me if I wanted to do the rematch with Spence in Saudi Arabia and I had hit Spence up to try to let him know that there was real money on the table for us to do the rematch in Saudi, but I never got ahold of him, so I just had to move on.”
Crawford won’t face Spence nor will he fight in Saudi Arabia, but he will take on a formidable opponent in Madrimov. Saturday’s card takes on outsized importance when you consider Alalshikh’s growing influence in the sport as he expands his global footprint.
The U.S. has long been boxing’s most lucrative market. Overall, Alalshikh has held five boxing events in Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh, with three more fights scheduled for the fall. Riyadh Season, a series of entertainment and sporting events that runs all year round, will make its England debut at London’s Wembley Stadium with the Anthony Joshua-Daniel Dubois heavyweight title fight on Sept. 21.
The Oct. 12 Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol undisputed light heavyweight championship fight and the Dec. 21 Oleksandr Usyk against Tyson Fury heavyweight championship rematch are set for Riyadh.
The biggest fight of all, though, is one between Canelo and Crawford, an event that would surely surpass the hallowed mark of 1 million pay-per-view buys and guarantee Crawford the biggest payday of his career. And it’s an event Alalshikh wants to stage stateside, where it makes the most commercial sense.
“I will give Canelo what I think is a fair price,” Alalshikh said. “If he accepts it, he deals directly with me to finish the deal. I don’t want anyone in the middle. I guaranteed Crawford a big fight, I want Canelo for Crawford and Crawford wants Canelo. But if Canelo is crazy [with his financial demands] I will still guarantee Crawford any fight he wants.”
Canelo or not, Alalshikh promised that Crawford won’t wait around without a fight ever again, as it appears the two will work together for the duration of his career.
Alalshikh told ESPN that he’s interested in matching Crawford with Tszyu — the Australian star who is the son of Hall of Fame boxer Kostya Tszyu — if a Canelo fight can’t be made. Tszyu is an all-action fighter. And though he is coming off a loss, it came under trying circumstances.
Tszyu dropped a split decision to Sebastian Fundora in a March title fight after he suffered a gruesome cut on his forehead early in the fight. Blood flowed into his eyes freely as his vision was affected for the remainder of the bout.
IT’S NOT LOST on Crawford that he’s being counted to perform at the highest level.
“Why am I the perfect guy for [Alalshikh’s] first American fight? Obviously he sees something in myself that he don’t see in other fighters,” Crawford said. “He viewed me as one of the best fighters in America as he should. I’m the No. 1 fighter in the world right now to date. So there’s a lot of respect that comes with Turki and myself.”
There’s pressure on Crawford to win impressively for many reasons, none more so than the prospect of a Canelo showdown.
Crawford has won titles at 135, 140 and 147 pounds. Alvarez, ESPN’s No. 5 pound-for-pound boxer, is the top fighter at 168 pounds. He’s been a champion at 154 and 160, and 175 pounds.
Alvarez has shrugged off calls for a fight with Crawford, telling Box Azteca in February, “I have nothing to gain and everything to lose. If I beat him, everyone will say he was too small.”
Crawford can’t prove in one 154-pound fight that he can hang with Alvarez two weight classes above. But a stoppage victory in his junior middleweight debut to extend his 11-KO winning streak would go a long way toward solidifying his power at a higher weight and raising his profile.
“I’ve found that promotionally, once you showcase his real personality, which is actually a great personality, he’s a winner,” Hearn said. “He’s funny. He’s driven. He’s a good family man. He should really be an American superstar, I think, because I think he’s a generational great.
“When you’re talking about [Sugar Ray] Leonard and [Marvelous Marvin] Hagler, he’s as good as those guys in my opinion. But people sort of gave up on him promotionally, and then I don’t think he really is out there trying to drive his profile. I think he’s just thinking, ‘I’m [36] years old, I’ve got a few more big fights, keep paying me the money and I’m happy being quiet in Omaha.'”
Madrimov is a strong, athletic puncher, and a full-fledged junior middleweight. An accomplished amateur from Uzbekistan, Madrimov (10-0-1, 7 KOs) was fast-tracked to a title shot. The 29-year-old is coming off a fifth-round KO of contender Magomed Kurbanov in March in Riyadh. Madrimov is +550, per ESPN BET, to upset Crawford and spoil plans for a possible Canelo fight.
And if Canelo isn’t interested, there are other viable fights for Crawford. There’s Sebastian Fundora, the 6-foot-5 ½ volume puncher, who upset Tszyu in March to win a junior middleweight title. There’s Ortiz, the power-puncher who meets Serhii Bohachuk on Aug. 10; and Tszyu, who returns on Sept. 22 in Australia.
And then the fight fans have been clamoring for against Philadelphia’s “Boots” Ennis, the welterweight titleholder who’s been calling for a shot at Crawford. Ennis was elevated to champion when Crawford was stripped of his IBF belt last November.
It’s good to have options, but Crawford is chasing legacy and only one man — the singular face of boxing — can fulfill what he seeks. And time is running out.
“I think that’s the biggest fight in boxing; I think me and Canelo colliding is like [Floyd] Mayweather and Canelo at that level,” Crawford said, referring to the 2013 matchup. “… I just feel I’m definitely not going to be doing this for much longer. I can assure you that.
“But I just felt like I never was able to display my true talent because I was held back. … I wasn’t able to fight the guys that I wanted to fight at the time that I wanted to fight ’em.”
No matter whom Crawford faces next, one thing is clear, if he and Alalshikh can help it: It won’t be another year until Bud fights again.
