Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford’s trainer Brian ‘BoMac’ McIntyre says he likes the idea of him moving up to 168 to challenge four-belt champion Canelo Alvarez after the two get past their next opponents.
It’s understandable why BoMac likes the idea of Crawford moving up to 168 to get a big payday without working for the title shot. If Crawford is given the title shot by Canelo without having to work for it, why turn it down?
There will be massive obstacles that will get in the way of Canelo defending against Crawford. First off, Canelo is already fighting a guy, Jermell Charlo, who fights two divisions below his weight class. That looks bad because Canelo is avoiding David Benavidez and David Morrell Jr. from the 168-lb division.
The problems preventing Canelo vs. Crawford:
- Negotiating terms
- Will promoters put up the vast guaranteed purses?
- Location
- Crawford’s inexperience at 168
- Fight being sanctioned
“When the details come out in a couple of months or so, but when they do, the world will know about it,” said Brian ‘BoMac’ McIntyre to Boxing Social about the rematch between Terence Crawford & Errol Spence Jr.
“No, I’m not surprised at all,” said BoMac when asked if he was surprised that Spence activated the rematch clause to force a second fight with Crawford.
“Like I said, I’m up for a challenge, and Terence definitely is because of the fact that he announced it. He told the world what he wanted to do,” BoMac said about Crawford wanting to move up to 168 to challenge Canelo Alvarez for his undisputed super middleweight championship.
Canelo has his WBC mandatory challenger David Benavidez, who has been waiting for two years for his title shot. It would look silly if Canelo is permitted to swerve him to pick up a payday against 147-lb fighter Crawford after defending against 154-lb fighter Jermell.
It wouldn’t be an issue for Canelo to face Crawford if he weren’t holding onto world titles at Super Middleweight. But for Canelo to repeatedly fight opponents from below his weight class looks bad and shows that he’s cherry-picking & wants no part of facing dangerous opposition.
If Canelo vacated his 168-lb titles, that would free him up to hand-pick fighters from the 147-lb and 154-lb divisions without getting jumped on by fans, but he’s probably not going to do that.
He likes holding onto the 168-lb titles, even if he’s not defending them against killers in the division. It’s prestigious to be an undisputed champion.
Canelo (59-2-2, 39 KOs) will be defending against Jermell Charlo at the end of the month on September 30th, but after that, he doesn’t have an opponent picked out.
Unfortunately, it’s not 100% certain that Canelo will win that fight because he’s a very good opponent with size & power, and Jermell will follow the blueprint created by Dmitry Bivol.
For his part, Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs) has a rematch with Errol Spence Jr. That fight could happen at the end of the year or in the first quarter of 2024. If Spence is in top form and not weight-drained like last time, he could give Crawford huge problems.
