Terence Crawford says he wants to fight WBC and WBO junior middleweight champion Sebastian Fundora next if he doesn’t face Errol Spence later this year.
Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs) won the WBA 154-lb title last Saturday against Israil Madrimov in Los Angeles, and he wants to become the undisputed champion at junior middleweight.
Fundora Presents Path to Undisputed
If Crawford beats WBC/WBO champion Fundora, he will hold three titles at 154. He would only need to defeat the winner between IBF champion Bakhram Murtazaliev and Tim Tszyu to become the four-belt undisputed champ.
“It would definitely be [Sebastian] Fundora if him and Spence don’t fight. It would definitely be Fundora,” said Terence Crawford to Shawn Porter’s YouTube channel about who he wants to fight next if he can’t get Canelo Alvarez.
Under the best-case scenario, it would only take the 36-year-old Crawford two fights to capture his third division undisputed championship. He previously won undisputed championships at 147 and 140.
Fans Want Ennis, Not Fundora
Fans prefer to see Crawford fight Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis rather than Fundora, Murtazaliev, or Tszyu. There’s more interest in a fight between Boots and Crawford than those guys. However, Crawford is belt-hungry and believes that capturing titles will validate him in the eyes of fans and future generations who look back at his record. It won’t won’t.
That’s another example of Crawford failing to understand what they want, which is why he’s not more popular. Fans don’t care about how many titles a fighter wins. They care about great fights, and it’s always been that way. When fans look back at fighters like Oscar De La Hoya, they examine how many titles he won.
They focus on his fights. Crawford doesn’t get it. He thinks winning titles is more important than the quality of fights, and that shows how misguided he is. He fails to comprehend what fans want.
Canelo Dream Dashed
Crawford wants an elusive fight against WBA/WBC/WBO super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez. However, the money isn’t there to make the fight happen, and the guy who could make the match happen, His Excellency Turki Alalshikh, has already given up trying after posting a message on social media saying Canelo wants too much money.
“I could have made it a dog fight because once I started letting my hands go, he was more uncomfortable,” said Crawford about what he could have done better against Israil Madrimov to make his win more decisive with the fans.
Crawford should have been more aggressive against Madrimov, especially when the fans started booing from the second round, but he looked afraid. It’s too late for Crawford to talk about what he should have done because he blew it.
His win is controversial, and he performed so poorly that the interest is no longer there for a fight against Canelo at 168. That might be the true reason Turki Alalshikh is no longer eager to make a fight between Crawford and Canelo.
He would know Crawford would lose badly and be useless for future fights against other guys. He’d no longer be unbeaten and would be exposed as an aging fighter who lacked the talent to beat the best.
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