By Cal Tiernan: Tim Bradley says he would have Terence Crawford as his #1 pound-for-pound fighter if he were presented with the same opportunities that highly popular Canelo Alvarez has been given.
Bradley feels that WBO welterweight champion ‘Bud’ Crawford (38-0, 29 KOs) is the better fighter than the Mexican star Canelo (57-1-2, 39 KOs), but he hasn’t gotten the opportunities to show his talent due to him being blocked.
The top fighters want to fight Canelo because of the life-changing money they can get by facing him. Canelo turns fighters into millionaires, so they’re willing to fight him because even if they lose, they’re set for life with massive money.
Crawford, 34, isn’t as famous, so the money his opposition makes isn’t enough for many of them to risk taking a loss that would hurt their careers.
Ring Magazine pound-for-pound rankings:
1. Canelo Alvarez
2. Oleksandr Usyk
3. Terence Crawford
4. Naoya Inoue
5. Josh Taylor
6. Errol Spence Jr.
7. Teofimo Lopez
8. Juan Francisco Estrada
9. Vasily Lomachenko
10. Kazuto Ioka
“When I look at the two, you choose a weight class, you put them both in the same, who would you put your money on, would you put your money on Crawford or Canelo?” said Bradley to ESPN. “Who has more skill? Pound for pound, if both types, With their skills, they fight each other, I would go with Crawford all day. ”
Bradley doesn’t have a vote in Ring Magazine’s pound-for-pound selection process, and it’s going to be difficult for Crawford to rise up from his #3 spot to take the #1 position from Canelo.
Suppose things remain constant with Crawford stuck fighting older past their prime gatekeepers like Shawn Porter, Kell Brook, and Egidijus Kavaliauskas.
In that case, he’s never going to take the #1 pound-for-pound ranking from Canelo or whoever comes along to take it from the Mexican star should he lose or begin to look poor.
Crawford announced last Saturday night that he’s moving on from his promoters at Top Rank now that his contract with them is up, but that doesn’t mean he’s suddenly going to get the fights he needs to become the#1 in boxing on the pound-for-pound lists.
Crawford needs wins over Errol Spence Jr., Yordenis Ugas, and possibly Jaron Ennis to get the top spot.
For some reason, Crawford has been mentioning Keith Thurman, but that former WBA/WBC welterweight champion hasn’t fought in three years.
Thurman is now viewed as being an over-the-hill guy that has lost interest in the sport after making a bunch of money in his last fight against Manny Pacquiao.
“I understand that Canelo Alvarez won the undisputed super middleweight championship, but Crawford also won an undisputed championship at 140 pounds, so he’s even with Canelo on that,” Bradley said to ESPN in comparing Canelo and Crawford.
It’s not even between Canelo and Crawford, despite Terence being a former undisputed champion at 140. Crawford’s fights at light welterweight didn’t attract a great deal of attention, mainly because of the guys he fought to win his belts.
Crawford became the undisputed champion at 140 by beating these fighters:
- Thomas Dulorme – WBO
- Viktor Postol – WBC
- Julius Indongo – IBF & WBA
Those fighters were too average for Crawford to gain attention from boxing fans for beating them.
While Canelo beat a bunch of nobodies to become the undisputed champion at 168, he still got a lot of attention from the praise lavished on him by DAZN, Matchroom, and Showtime.
“Alvarez has won titles in four different weight classes, Crawford has won titles in three different divisions and is also undefeated,” said Crawford.
“Since 2014, Crawford is 16-0 in title fights, with 13 KOs. He is the most feared fighter in boxing. If he had the same opportunities as Canelo, there would be no question.
“But the fact is that the rivals do not want to fight Crawford, while Canelo is the source of income of boxing and everyone wants to share the ring with him because they can make lots of money,” said Bradley.