Terence Crawford claims he’ll be in the top three pound-for-pound of “all time” if he’s victorious against unified super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez on September 13th.
(Credit: Meline Pizano/Matchroom Boxing)
Weak Resume
It would be nice to humor Crawford and say he’s the top 3 pound-for-pound of all time if he beats Alvarez, but it would be a joke. Terence’s resume is too weak to take him seriously as a top 3 or even top 10. He’s not beaten anyone good during his entire career.
Terence told The Ring that he thinks it would be enough to place him in the top three, but it sounds like he doesn’t know much about the history of the sport.
His best victory is Errol Spence, who has been null & void since his car crash in 2019. That’s the only significant win on Crawford’s 17-year resume. When you compare Crawford’s resume to greats like Sugar Ray Leonard, Sugar Ray Robinson, Roberto Duran, Salvador Sanchez, Muhammad Ali, Archie Moore, Manny Pacquiao, and Oscar De La Hoya, it pales in comparison.
By the time Sugar Ray Leonard was 25 in his fourth year as a professional, he already had a better career resume than Terence Crawford does now. Ray had already fought these fighters
– Tommy Hearns x 2
– Roberto Duran x 2
– Wilfried Benitez
Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs) feels that a win over the Mexican star, Canelo (62-2-2, 39 KOs), would place him ahead of many of the top fighters ever. Canelo is arguably on his retirement tour and has been since his loss to Dmitry Bivol in 2022.
Alvarez is not the fighter he once was six years ago when he fought Gennadiy Golovkin for the second time. It’s been years since Canelo fought a good opponent, and he clearly swerved David Benavidez and David Morrell when they were both at 168, trying to get fights against him.
It’s too late for Crawford even to make the top 10 of the all-time pound-for-pound list because his resume is too weak to get the wins that he would need to make the list. He only fights once a year, and he’s been playing it safe, avoiding the killers at 154 and didn’t want to go up to 168 to test himself against the talented fighters in that weight. He’s just looking for the Canelo retirement dough.
The Killer List
If Crawford wants to make a late try to become one of the all-time undisputed champions, he would need to beat these fighters:
– David Benavidez
– Artur Beterbiev
– Dmitry Bivol
– David Morrell
– Callum Smith
– Bakhram Murtazaliev
– Jai Opetaia
– Janibek Alimkhanuly
