By Jim Calfa: Terence Crawford is not taking no for an answer for his hopes of challenging for the undisputed super middleweight championship against Canelo Alvarez.
Despite Canelo saying repeatedly that he has nothing to gain from fighting Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs), the Omaha, Nebraska native is continuing to tell the media that he wants the opportunity to fight for the undisputed championship at 168 once he gets past his rematch with Errol Spence Jr. in December.
The best hope that Crawford has of getting the chance to fight for the undisputed is for Jermell Charlo to defeat Canelo this month on September 30th.
Jermell would like to fight Crawford next, but that’s assuming that the WBC allows Terence to jump in front of the winner of the November 24th fight between interim/mandatory David Benavidez and Demetrius Andrade.
What would further complicate Crawford’s hopes of a fight for the undisputed is that if Jermell beats Canelo, the two will likely have an immediate rematch in May 2024. The winner of that fight for surely be required to face the Benavidez vs. Andrade winner.
It’s not likely the WBC would allow Crawford to move ahead of the Benavidez-Andrade winner, as the mandatory is overdue, and it wouldn’t be fair for a 147-pounder to take the fight that they’ve been waiting for.
If Crawford waits around too long, he’ll get beaten by one of the killers at 154 if that’s where he goes next after his rematch with Spence.
Age will eventually catch up to Crawford, and if he tangles with the wrong guy with youth, size & power like Jesus Ramos, he could be brought to earth.
Boxing is a young man’s sort, and it doesn’t matter how talented you are. If you get old and you move up to weight class to fight guys who are young, strong, and not weight-drained or worn down from car crashes, you’re going to lose at some point,
Terence doggedly determined
“Another fight for the undisputed, and then I just walk away. Three times undisputed, that would be dope,” said Terence Crawford to ex-journeyman boxer Travis Hartman’s social platform when asked how he wants his career to end.
The best thing that Crawford could do if he’s serious about wanting to fight for the undisputed championship at 168 is to put faith in himself by moving up to the weight class after his rematch with Spence and beating one or two of the top dogs.
If the Benavidez vs. Andrade winner is already fighting the winner of the Canelo-Charlo fight, Crawford should take his chances and face WBA ‘regular’s super middleweight champion David Morrell Jr. No one will argue that Crawford isn’t deserving of a crack at the undisputed championship if he beats Morrell, and if he loses, then he wasn’t good enough anyway.
“Everything that comes my way, I just take it in stride because I feel it was meant for me, and I was supposed to be here,” said Crawford.
“So, I don’t get over-excited, and I don’t get over-happy about it. I just feel like this is something I’ve been knowing about myself for years. Y’all might be excited, but I’m not excited because I already knew what y’all didn’t know.
“I might be disappointed that it took so long. It took me five years to fight Errol Spence. When I came in the division in 2018, I wanted all the champions, all three. I didn’t take no tune-up fights. I went straight to Jeff Horn in my first fight.
“He was coming off a win over Pacquiao. In my first fight, I was, ‘Let’s go.’ Everybody was like, ‘You need to test out the weight class.’ ‘I want to go straight into the champions.’
“At that particular time, they were saying him [Horn] and Errol Spence were the two biggest welterweights in the division. I was calling them out, but I didn’t have a title yet. ‘Oh, he ain’t got no title. He ain’t even fought in the welterweight division yet.’
“But y’all was hinting that you would fight Jeff Horn, but once I fought Jeff Horn, it was ‘You’re on the wrong side of the street’ and all these other narratives states. So it was a whole bunch of hassles.
“But everything happens for a reason. I’m here now; I’m undisputed. I did what I said I was going to do, and my life moves on,” said Crawford.