Canelo vs Crawford — Head to Head

The Best Fight Since Mayweather vs Pacquiao

Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs Terence “Bud” Crawford

The Stakes

In a few days, two of the modern era’s all-time great boxers will face off in a monumental clash of skill and will. Both Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Terence “Bud” Crawford are pound-for-pound elite fighters looking for the ultimate battle to punctuate their respective careers. For Crawford, in perhaps his final professional boxing appearance, this is his chance to sunset his career with a supernova. For Canelo, a defence of his undisputed super-middle-weight championship, his legacy, and the opportunity for an Indian Summer.

The Achievements

Both fighters are four-weight world champions. Canelo is the reigning undisputed champion of super-middleweight, where he has ruled with an iron fist throughout the first half of the decade. Terence Crawford is the first of three men to become an undisputed champion across two divisions in the modern four-belt era. At various points, both men have been considered the pound-for-pound number one fighter in the world, Canelo in 2021 during his initial unification of his weight class, and Crawford in 2023 when he brutalised and retired a fellow elite fighter in Errol Spence Jr.

Though both boxers have now been displaced by Oleksandr Usyk and Naoya Inoue in the pound-for-pound rankings, Crawford is widely considered among the world’s top three active fighters, and Canelo is still widely considered within the top seven or eight.

The Narrative

We can begin the story with the challenger, Terence “Bud” Crawford. In the Summer of 2023, Crawford defeated his arch-rival, Errol Spence Jr in the most anticipated boxing match since Mayweather vs Pacquiao. At the time, both fighters, dominant and undefeated forces in the welterweight division, had swept away all other claimants to the throne. After half-a-decade of delays, Crawford and Spence met at the summit and fought for the one unified, undisputed championship. Crawford was victorious. At age thirty-five, it was a crowning moment for him— for a brief time, cementing his claim as the greatest boxer in the world and vindicating a lifetime grafting away at his craft.

It looked to be the apex of Crawford’s career; he had made his money, earned his fame, and dominated across three-weight classes. He was now in the latter half of his thirties and toward the tail end of his athletic prime. It seemed like a good point to call time on his career, take his flowers, and walk off into the sunset. But unlike most other athletes who make it to his point, Crawford was still hungry — there was more he wished to prove, he wanted a bigger challenge, more glory, a greater prize, a bigger fish. But where to go from here? He was already a triple champion. Were there anymore mountains left to climb?

Hoping to appease his voracious appetite for greatness, the following year, Crawford ascends into his fourth weight class to fight the undefeated Uzbek champion, Israil Madrimov (12–0–1). Madrimov was a relatively obscure fighter and despite Crawford’s success at becoming a quadruple champion, the event was not a commercial success. The match was a visible step down from Spence, and it seemed that this great fighter’s career was on the other side of the hill.

Perhaps this fight was a wakeup call. Crawford has limited time to capitalise on his God-given lease of boxing abilities, and he does not want to end his career in a whimper. Quite the opposite, Crawford is aiming to exit the sport on the grand stage challenging his greatest opponent yet, Canelo Alvarez, the dominant champion of the super-middleweight division. For Crawford, defeat shows us the ceiling for this very special fighter, whereas victory leaves room for the imagination, daring us to dream, and redefining what is possible.

Reasons Crawford Will Win

Career Momentum

Though both fighters are on the latter side of hall-of-fame-worthy careers, they are in slightly different places in their respective timelines. Canelo’s magnum opus performance was against Billy Joe Saunders in May of 2021, since then, he has stagnated then declined. Most people regard his match with Caleb Plant or Dmitry Bivol as the last time Canelo was “at his peak”, but since then, the magic of his performances have progressively decayed. Though Canelo is still undefeated at super-middleweight, since unifying the division, the quality of his opposition has receded and his matches have lost their “wow factor”. Of the last three years, Canelo has put forth a series of increasingly pedestrian bouts against B-level opposition, atrophying to the extent that his most recent match with William Scull is considered one of the worst, least active fights in recent history. If Canelo’s decline was not clear before, the Scull fight made it undeniable. The commentators even noted how his physique looked “flatter”. Personally, I observed that his legs looked somewhat lacking in mass compared to years prior. The Canelo we have today is probably 70% of the fighter he was in his prime. Still elite, but no longer magnificent.

Meanwhile, though Crawford is likely also declining but his decay is not as pronounced since he fights only once per annum. Perhaps if Crawford had three or four fights since Spence, we would have a clearer grasp of where he is at in his career. Most fans and analysts regard his fight against Madrimov as an “off-night” against a bad style matchup in a new weight class. But perhaps this narrative is being used to conceal the fact that Crawford a former light-weight in his late-thirties, is probably not the same fighter he was a few years ago. Even so, Crawford’s decline is still purely speculative, the world has yet to see clear evidence for it. Whereas Canelo’s decline is steeper and easier to observe. For this reason, we must give the edge on career momentum to Terence Crawford.

*Boxing Skills?

It is widely accepted that Terence “Bud” Crawford has the overall boxing skill advantage over Canelo. However, I would caveat this point with an asterisk and a question-mark; I don’t believe the difference in skill is as wide and decisive as people think. Bud is regarded as one of the greatest switch-hitters in recent decades — he is a converted southpaw who can allegedly fight equally well out of both stances, that is the narrative among most boxing fans. His ambidextrous skills give him access to a greater variety of ideal foot positionings, punching geometries, and angles of retreat than a single-stance fighter. As such, Crawford has a rightful argument for exhibiting the most diverse and adaptable skillset in boxing. But I believe that pertains to the breadth of his skills more-so than their overall depth. Crawford’s skillset is vast with multiple specialties, but it’d be wrong to say that he’s equally good at everything, and I don’t believe he outclasses Canelo in all areas.

For example, Crawford is clearly a better finisher than Canelo, and I’d argue has better footwork, jab, and parry; however, I’ve yet to see him exhibit the same head movement, slickness and elusiveness that Canelo showed in the Danny Jacobs fight. I’d also give Canelo the slight advantage in body punching and have them approximately equal in counterpunching. Though I would still give Crawford the overall nod in the skills department, I regard them as being in a similar league.

Age

Terence Crawford is a few weeks shy of his thirty-eighth birthday and Canelo is thirty-five. And yet most pundits, fans, and analysts are giving Crawford the “age” advantage. But they are not referring to chronological age, more-so biological age. Canelo started his professional boxing career at just fifteen years old. He has over sixty professional boxing matches. Though Terence Crawford is older, many are arguing that Canelo’s body has more mileage and is deteriorating faster. Based on each fighter’s last three performances, I’m inclined to agree with this assessment. Through Crawford’s body seems to be in better condition, lets’ not pretend that the man isn’t approaching forty — he probably isn’t in the same condition he was a decade ago.

Instincts

Terence Crawford has the greatest boxing instincts of recent times. This is an assessment I hear often from Teddy Atlas, and having seen footage of Crawford and his streak of knockouts at welterweight, I’m inclined to agree with him.

Wrestling Skills

One overlooked factor is Crawford’s wrestling acumen and how this may relate to boxing. Of course, boxing is a striking sport, but there is a grappling aspect to it, clinching. The advantage of wrestling is the ability to leverage your strength and weight during a clinch to steer opponents into dangerous positions. These are techniques Francis Ngannou and Oleksandr Usyk used to their advantage against Tyson Fury to stop him from overpowering them in the clinch on the inside. I see an element of this coming into play from Crawford during extreme close quarters. Perhaps if Crawford can lean upon his wrestling foundations, he can prevent Canelo from bulling him around with raw strength.

Reasons Canelo Will Win

Durability

Simply put, Canelo is a bipedal tank. He has a blocky physique with a brick-like head and a thick neck like an old oak tree — it’s as if a higher power designed him to endure punches. Despite fighting power-punching monstrosities such as Gennady Golovkin and Sergey Kovalev, Canelo has never been legitimately knocked down in his entire professional career. In fact, he has rarely, if ever, even been dazed by a punch. He has a legitimate argument for the most uncrackable chin of the twenty-first century.

If Canelo can endure punches from Sergey Kovalev, a notoriously hard-hitting light-heavyweight champion, then how is Terence Crawford, a former lightweight, supposed to hurt him? Based on Canelo’s track record, unless his punch-resistance has deteriorated overnight, it is improbable, nigh-impossible that Crawford has the power to stop, nor even hurt Canelo.

My question is whether Crawford has enough power to earn Canelo’s respect (i.e. impose caution upon his opponent). Perhaps Canelo eats Bud’s best shots like tic-tacs, marches him down, and overpowers him. Or perhaps Bud will punch sharp enough and hard enough to make Canelo think twice. We will know very quickly into the fight whether Crawford’s power can earn Canelo’s respect. And if not, Crawford is due for a long and difficult night.

This is especially prevalent because Bud’s style is built upon his ability to hurt his opponents. At the end of the day, Crawford isn’t an untouchable slickster like Floyd Mayweather or Dmitry Bivol — this is because his potent offensive instincts can render him somewhat hittable. If both fighters trade punches and Bud lands three blows to Canelo’s one, I feel like Bud still takes the worst of the exchange. Canelo has the durability to absorb incoming punishment and the power to deal it back harder.

Power

Further to this point, all evidence suggests that Crawford is significantly outgunned going into this fight, as if he came to the shootout armed with a Glock against an opponent with a Remington.

My main worry for Crawford is whether he can endure Canelo’s blows to the body, namely, a shot to the liver or solar plexus. Having seen the weigh-in, Crawford’s physique, though impressively lean, shows a narrow midsection. He looks agile, athletic, and fit, but his lack of size, stature, and strudiness raises some potential concerns about his ability to withstand Canelo’s attacks. I can see the possibility of Canelo investing the Crawfords’ body early on, killing the challenger’s legs in the latter end of the fight. If Canelo’s body assault can mitigate Crawford’s footwork and agility, I can see a stoppage by Canelo later in the fight. If I see Canelo “putting water in the basement”, Crawford will be in deep water for the later rounds.

Even so, I believe Crawford is crafty enough to survive the fight or, at the very least, finish on his feet. The one scenario I see Crawford losing by KO is during or after a hellacious liver-shot from Canelo. As amazing as Crawford is, I can’t see him enduring Canelo’s body shots very well.

Experience

Canelo has more experience against better fighters than Terence Crawford. The Mexican icon boasts a record of 21–2–1 against former, current and future champions compared to Crawford’s 11–0. And within those numbers, Canelo has seen everything: crafty veterans such as Sugar sahne Mosely, slippery Cuban fighters like Lara and Scull, fearsome knockout punchers in Kovalev and Cotto, a speed demon in Amir Khan, a human battleship like Gennady Golovkin, the pinnacle of Soviet Boxing, Dmitry Bivol; and the greatest defensive boxer of all time, Floyd Mayweather Junior. Though Crawford is also a veteran at the championship level, his experience does not run as deep.

Hometown Advantage

Lastly, it’s worth mentioning the external factors, namely, the venue and the judges. Defeating Canelo in Las Vegas is to stroll into the dragon’s den and slay their golden goose. Canelo Alvarez is still boxing’s biggest brand, an economic powerhouse with the Midas touch — he brings fame, fortune, and the passion of Mexican fans to each of his events. The powers that run the sport know he is a commercial battery that supercharges revenue, and all incentives are aligned to keep it that way.

The crowd will likely side with Canelo, but more worryingly, the judges may favour him too. Judges have historically given Canelo disproportionately favourable scorecards, and greatly tilted the odds of him winning should the fight go to the scorecards. It’s a widely accepted adage in boxing that you need to win at least eight or nine rounds to get a draw against Canelo. To beat Canelo on the scorecards and overcome the judges’ bias, one would need to win at least nine or ten rounds clearly and decisively. A tall order for Crawford, greatly constricting his margin for error and experimentation. It further restricts Crawford’s already dire winning conditions.

My Verdict, a Head and Heart Split

I’ll put my cards on the table and nail my colours to the mast. Look at how I’ve written the intro to this article. It’s clear that I want Crawford to win; it makes for a much better narrative. A Crawford win would create much more fanfare across the sport; he would attain the rare status of quintuple champion, a status only enjoyed by five other all-time great fighters: Tommy Hearns, Sugar Ray Leonard, Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather Jr, and Manny Pacquiao. My heart says Crawford.

However, if you’ve read my arguments and reasoning, all evidence points to Canelo Alvarez attaining victory. Canelo has many more paths to victory. If the fight goes the distance, the judges will likely sway the match in his favour. Yet if both boxers engage in a shootout, Canelo dominates via his granite chin and mule-kick punching power. Crawford only really has two routes to victory: a stoppage (i.e., somehow moving up multiple weight classes and knocking out/incapacitating the most durable fighter in the world), or else he’d have to put together an equally dominant performance as Dmitry Bivol and thoroughly outclass Canleo in virtually every round.

If they fight ten times, I believe Canleo wins seven of them. Statistically, if I were to bet money on it, I would pick Canelo to win by late stoppage. And yet, I cannot bring myself to vote against Crawford. Though I believe Crawford only has a 20% chance of winning, I also think the stars may align tonight, everything might just come together, and Crawford will ensure that 20% happens tonight.