David Benavidez’s promoter, Sampson Lewkowicz, says he doesn’t want to watch Canelo Alvarez’s fight against Terence Crawford on September 13th because he’s concerned for the health of the Nebraska native, Bud.
Business, Not Sport
He views this as a “Business” type of fight rather than sporting, which is what many knowledgeable fans see it. It’s a money-making fight, but not one that has any value. Crawford won’t be moving up to prove himself at 168 first.
This is just a one-off for him, and he’ll either retire or return to 154 to carefully pick beatable opposition in that weight class.
Unless Turki Al-Sheikh keeps paying Crawford boatloads of money, he’ll surely retire after his fight with Canelo. Obviously, the ideal situation would be for Crawford to beat Canelo because he can get a rematch.
That’s probably what he’s hoping will happen because he’ll take a huge pay cut when he returns to 154. There aren’t too many top-level fighters that Crawford would have a good chance of beating without getting knocked out.
Sampson doesn’t want to see the much bigger and stronger unified super middleweight champion knockout the soon-to-be 38-year-old Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs) and leave him on the canvas out cold in a pile of broken flesh.
Lewkowicz states that Canelo (62-2-2, 39 KOs) is a “smart promoter” because of the way he selects his opponents. He’d like Canelo to fight Benavidez, but that doesn’t seem likely.
The Money Fight
“You can’t force a champion to fight the best, and what you want for Benavidez is to fight the best to choose the best,” said Benavidez’s promoter, Sampson Lewkowicz, to Sean Zittel about wanting Canelo Alvarez to fight David Benavidez.
“He didn’t choose three divisions under. So this is what it is,” said Sampson, criticizing 168-lb unified champion Canelo’s choice of picking Terence Crawford for his next challenger to his three super middleweight titles.
“It’s only business, Canelo, and good luck to him. He’s very smart, and he deserves to be a smart promoter for sure. I don’t like that fight. I will not watch it,” said Sampson when asked about his thoughts on Alvarez facing Bud Crawford next on September 13th.
Canelo vs. Crawford has a business fight written all over it. Terence looked nothing special in his debut at 154, barely beating Israil Madrimov, and now he’s moving up two weight classes to challenge Canelo for his WBA, WBC, and WBO super middleweight titles. If this were a real sporting situation, Crawford would need to move up to 168 and defeat fighters like Diego Pacheco, Christian Mbilli, Caleb Plant, and Jaime Munguia to earn the Canelo title shot.
“I watched what happened with Amir Khan, and I cried because I knew Khan for many years,” said Lewkowicz, referring to Canelo’s brutal sixth-round knockout win over the much smaller Amir Khan on May 7th, 2016, in Las Vegas. Khan was knocked unconscious by a right hand from Canelo.
“I cried when I saw him fall down because IÂ thought he was dead, and that could happen. He [Canelo] was 25 lbs over that kid. It was horrible. So, the same thing could happen again [with Alvarez fighting the smaller, weaker, and older 38-ish Terence]. I don’t want to see that fight because I respect all the fighters,” said Sampson about not wanting to see Canelo manhandle a frail Crawford.
