While some of us, quite a few in fact, are intrigued and excited about the September fight between Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford, famed trainer Abel Sanchez is no fan of the fight. At all. Sanchez, who spoke once again with Fight Hub TV, said the fight is “ridiculous” in his opinion, this as “Bud” Crawford is simply far too small to be able to compete with Canelo, the reigning super-middleweight champion.
Crawford has other experts, such as Teddy Atlas and Tim Bradley, wondering if he has the greatness required to go up to 168 and upset Canelo with his boxing brilliance, and Atlas for one has said he is not writing Crawford off. But Sanchez is, and he says Canelo will dish out a “pounding” and that he will stop Crawford somewhere during the final quarter of the fight that will go down in Las Vegas.
“Come on, I think it’s a ridiculous fight myself,” Sanchez said of Canelo-Crawford. “I think that Crawford is too small. Canelo is, in my opinion, the face of boxing right now. Look at his resume. I think it’s a good fight for a little while, Crawford’s hand speed – just like when [Gennady] Golovkin fought Kell Brook – that hand speed [of Brook] was evident at the beginning of the fight but as the fight goes on Canelo is going to start pounding on him and I think that the fight ends somewhere between the 9th and 12th round. I think anything Canelo hits him with is going to hurt him. He won’t be able to catch him early because like I said, the foot speed and the hand speed, and Crawford’s a heck of a fighter – at his own weight.”
Sanchez went on to point out, as have other experts, that there are weight classes for a reason. “’54 when he fought [Israil] Madrimov in his last fight showed us the weight makes a difference,” Abel said of Crawford. “I don’t care how much weight he gains, 168 is going to make a difference.”
It is indeed a huge jump Crawford is making, as well as a heck of a risky jump into a massive fight. But in daring to be great as Crawford really and absolutely is here, he has the respect of much of the boxing world. And as risky as the fight might be for Crawford, if he were to lose, his legacy would not take that big of a hit as he could simply say, yeah, Canelo was just too big and strong. But what if Sanchez is wrong here, and Crawford does manage to pull off a stunning victory? It’s a fascinating fight to some of us, yet not to others. Sanchez of course makes some great points, but even the great trainers can be wrong at times.
Crawford might just be catching Canelo at the right time. No longer at his peak, Canelo has of course been outboxed before now. Crawford is also past his physical peak, but as special as he is, as high as his ring IQ is, Crawford’s never been in anything close to a damaging, punishing fight.
We have seen a great “little man” move up and defeat a great “big man” before now (think Michael Spinks-Larry Holmes, Manny Pacquiao-Oscar De La Hoya, and going further back, the great Thomas Hearns went all the way up from welterweight to cruiserweight) – and just maybe it will happen again in September.
