His Excellency Turki Alalshikh says he thinks Terence Crawford has his mind made up about only wanting to fight Canelo Alvarez next.
Turki Alalshikh Doubts Crawford’s Interest in Vergil Fight
Turki doesn’t believe Crawford, 36, will agree to an offer to fight Vergil Ortiz Jr., who recently captured the WBC interim 154-lb title with a 12-round majority decision win over Serhii Bohachuk.
“I don’t think Crawford will fight anyone except Canelo,” said Turki to Charlie Parson at the Stomping Grounds.
It sounds like Crawford will be sitting and waiting on the Canelo golden parachute payday for a long time. If Crawford sits out of the ring for too long, his value could drop because he’s not popular as it is with casual boxing fans in the U.S. He never has.
Unless Turki can come up with an offer that the superstar Canelo is willing to agree to, it sounds like Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs) is going to be out of luck and will need to fight Vergil or one of the other 154-pounders next.
Canelo reportedly wants $150 million to fight Crawford, which might be more than Turki is willingness to pay. If the reports are accurate, Crawford’s recent fight against Israil Madrimov on August 3rd only brought in 200,000 PPV buys, which suggests that he’s still not a draw.
Those numbers show that Crawford continues to be a hard sell with casual boxing fans in the U.S., and that’s surprising because he’s not a household name.
As fans saw in Crawford’s fight against Madrimov, he’s a pure boxer without an exciting style that attracts interest. That’s been one of Crawford’s major problems during his 16-year career.
The only time Crawford deviated from that style was when he fought Errol Spence, but he was facing a depleted fighter, making it easy pickings for him.
Vergil Ortiz Jr. is the logical option for Crawford if Turki can’t get the fight against Canelo, which doesn’t look likely. Crawford would have a difficult time with the hungry 26-year-old Ortiz (22-0, 21 KOs), who possesses a lot of power, throws a lot of punches, and is willing to walk through hard shots to land his own.
Vergil would be a grueling fight for the soon-to-be 37-year-old Crawford, and he might lose. He’s not been damaged from car crashes, and he won’t be weight-drained like Spence was after losing 40+ lbs of fat in camp.
The Nebraska native Crawford sounds like he’s spoiled from getting his way in the last two fights and feels he can make demands to get his way. Reality will hit Crawford in the face because Canelo is financially out of reach for him, and he doesn’t appear to want the fight.
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