By Sean Jones: Terence Crawford joined a small elite group of undisputed champions last Saturday night by defeating Errol Spence by a 9th round TKO to become the four-belt champ at welterweight in their headliner on Showtime PPV at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs) is now the fourth member of this small group of fighters to be undisputed champion, consisting of Canelo Alvarez, Jermell Charlo & Devin Haney.
It’s a badly flawed group of well-maneuvered fighters who, unlike Crawford, aren’t necessarily the best in their weight classes but rather were carefully moved by their management. Sadly, only Crawford earned his undisputed championship by fighting the best.
The other gang of three picked up their undisputed championships by beating subpar opposition, reflecting the careful matchmaking done by their promoters/managers on their behalf.
You can argue that Devin Haney isn’t even in the top five of the best lightweights right now, and he looks out of place as the guy holding all the belts in the 135-lb division.
The way Crawford systematically took the previously unbeaten IBF/WBA/WBC 147-lb champion Spence (28-1, 22 KOs) apart, knocking him down three times, showed that he’s a level above the other three undisputed champs in men’s boxing.
The other three undisputed champions are pretty shaky at this point, ready to be dethroned by the young killers that are on their doorsteps.
One of them, Canelo Alvarez, the undisputed champion at super middleweight, has chosen to use the practice of risk avoidance to eliminate threats to his throne to keep him artificially at the top of the 168-lb division.
It’s believed that Canelo has kept himself on top by avoiding these three killers: David Benavidez, David Morrell Jr. & Dmitry Bivol, all of which would be Canelo’s worst nightmare.
Canelo’s focus on having sure outcomes by only selecting opponents he knows he can beat has hurt his popularity and given the impression that he’s now a four-belt paper champion.
Unfortunately, Canelo isn’t the only paper tiger among the undisputed champions.
- Jermell Charlo – 154
- Canelo Alvarez – 168
- Devin Haney – 135
The opposition these three defeated became undisputed:
- Jermell Charlo: Brian Castano
- Canelo Alvarez: Caleb Plant
- Devin Haney: George Kambosos Jr
Obviously, Haney fought the weakest fighter to join the group of undisputed champions by beating George Kambosos Jr, who is basically a bottom fringe-level fighter that got lucky by defeating a weight-drained, injured & mentally disengaged Teofimo Lopez.
Canelo’s win over Caleb Plant also looks less than impressive now, in light of David Benavidez defeating the former IBF champion last March in a beatdown.
