Canelo Alvarez’s decision to begin negotiations with William Scull on January 10th for a potential fight in May puts Terence Crawford in an uncertain position.
Four-division world champion Crawford had hoped to be the next opponent for unified super middleweight champion Canelo (62-2-2, 39 KOs), but it looks like he won’t get that mega-money fight.
Crawford options
Terence, 37, will now have to start thinking about fighting someone else to keep him busy while he waits. He hopes Canelo will pay him in September. I don’t know if it will then, but you can understand why Crawford would believe it would happen.
If Crawford doesn’t retire, these would be his best options for inheritance and money:
– Sebastian Fundora
– Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis
– Tim Tszyu
– Serhij Bohačuk
– Bakhram Murtazaliev
Fundora will be busy with his expected title defense against Errol Spence and likely won’t be available until the second half of 2025. So if Crawford wants to fight him, he’ll have to sit on the shelf for extra time.
He had already been sidelined since his narrow win over Israil Madrimov on August 3rd. We’re probably looking at Crawford being out of the ring for about a year and a half if he decides to wait for the match at Fundora. It’s not the smartest thing for Crawford to do, but if he doesn’t want to risk being beaten by Murtazaliev, Bohachuk, Tszyu or Ennis, it’s understandable why he would choose to wait.
Most of those fights would require Turki Al-Shiekh to finance them in order for Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs) to be ready to take on any of those guys. He’s not a PPV guy that one of the promoters would be willing to give him a huge guaranteed purse and hope the match sells out.
As we saw in Terence’s last event against Israil Madrimov, he is not a PPV attraction. That’s why Turki has to step in so Crawford can fight any dangerous fighter at 154, like Murtazaliev or Bohachuk. Those would be tough fights for Crawford even if he was young, but now that he’s pushing 40, those fighters would be a nightmare for him.
Undisputed at 154?
If Crawford were bravehe would take on IBF 154lb champion Murtazaliev (23-0, 17 KOs) in a unification bout to put himself in position to face Fundor for the undisputed championship in the second half of 2025.
If Terence can win the IBF belt, he can put pressure on Fundora to fight him. Becoming the undisputed junior middleweight champion would increase Crawford’s stature in the boxing world, which could help him win the fight against Canelo.
It’s still not certain that Bud will win the fight because, as we’ve seen before, Canelo can’t be pressed in a fight. He could ignore Crawford for the rest of his career, like he did with David Benavidez, and not lose sleep over the criticism he receives from fans.
