Terence Crawford won’t be fighting Canelo Alvarez next when he returns to the ring in 2025. His Excellency Turki Alalshikh revealed on Tuesday that the 37-year-old Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs) is dealing with a “little injury” that will keep him out of the ring until “after May.”
New Targets
With the Mexican superstar Canelo always fighting on Cinco de Mayo in May of each year, there is no chance of ‘Bud’ Crawford being his next opponent.
Turki didn’t mention any opponents that he will offer Crawford to fight when he returns to the ring in June or July 2025. However, there are some solid fighters at 154 that Crawford can fight if he’s willing to take a risk against one of the young lions.
Options for Crawford:
– Bakhram Murtazaliev
– Vergil Ortiz Jr.
– Sebastian Fundora
– Serhii Bohachuk
– Xander Zayas
– Israil Madrimov
– Tim Tszyu
– Errol Spence
The way Crawford struggled against Madrimov, there’s a good chance that some of the above fighters might beat him. Murtazaliev and Bohachuk would be pure trouble for Crawford. Madrimov would be a problem for him as well, because he’ll have made the needed adjustments to his game to beat him.
There was never any indication that Canelo would agree to a fight with Crawford because he’s repeatedly rejected that fight. However, with the dwindling number of well-known opponents that will bring in PPV buys, Canelo may choose to fight Crawford in 2025 if Turki meets his asking price.
There have been rumors of Canelo wanting $180 million, but that doesn’t sound like a figure that he would ask for because he would be a monstrous favorite against Crawford.
We saw how Crawford barely beat Israil Madrimov in his debut at 154 in his last fight on August 3rd. It’s obvious from watching that performance that Crawford would stand no chance against Canelo or any of the top 168-pounders. He’s too old, small, and weak to compete in that division.
“I tried and pushed to do this fight; Crawford is not ready,” Turki Alalshikh said to Ariel Helwani’s channel. “He has a small health issue, a little injury, but he prefers to fight with us in May or after May.”
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