Canelo Alvarez vs. Terence Crawford bout is “off” now for September with no reason given. The fight was never actually made, so it’s not a shock that it’s no longer happening.
Fight Off
There’s still no reason given for why the Canelo-Crawford fight isn’t happening, but the two fighters probably had different views of what they felt it was worth. The Ring is reporting the fight is off. That’s Turki Al-Sheikh’s magazine.
Canelo (62-2-2, 39 KOs) plans to fight YouTuber turned boxer Jake Paul in May on Cinco de Mayo. That fight is expected to bring in a lot of PPV buys due to Jake’s popularity on Instagram and YouTube.
If you’re Canelo, fighting Jake is the better deal because there’s more involved. Since he’ll have to deal with a fan backlash, he might as well get the most money.
Fans were already criticizing Canelo vs. Crawford, calling it a “cash grab” and seeing no sporting value in it because Terence needed to move up two weight classes from 154 to 168. Canelo would receive zero credit for beating Crawford and would be dumped on for cherry-picking another smaller guy,, as he did in 2023 when he beat 154-pounder Jermell Charlo.
Fighting Jake Paul is the better deal for Canelo because he has 28.8 million Instagram followers and 20.9 million YouTube subscribers. That is an enormous number of fans who would potentially purchase a fight between them, making Alvarez even wealthier than he is now.
Weight DynamicsÂ
Crawford should have moved up to 168 and proven himself against Diego Pacheco, David Morrell, and David Benavidez so he could make things easier for Canelo. If Terence beat those guys, no one would have an issue about Canelo fighting him.
Canelo can make more money fighting David Benavidez than he can against Crawford. Turki could have seen the amount of attention the Benavidez vs. David Morrell fight generated last Saturday night, and it would have been a better deal to get the ‘Mexican Monster’ for Canelo.
