The much hyped showdown between Saul ‘Canelo‘ Alvarez and Terence Crawford appears to be dead in the water.
Crawford had been chasing a clash with the unified super-middleweight champion ever since his career defining victory over Errol Spence Jr last year. Having not been able to land the fight immediately, ‘Bud’ moved up one weight division to face WBA 154lb champion Israil Madrimov last weekend.
In what proved a tough night’s work for the 36-year-old, the American came on strong in the later rounds to earn a unanimous points victory and became a four-weight world champion on the process.
During the fight night in Los Angeles, Riyadh Season’s Turki Alalshikh announced an offer had been made to Canelo for the Crawford fight. However, just 48 hours later that offer was rescinded and Alalshikh said he was ‘no longer interested’ in the match-up and later claimed the Mexican only wants ‘easy fights’.
“Just wrapped up an important meeting now with my team, planning for the upcoming fights that we will make for 2024-2025. I decided to disregard the Canelo fight, as I don’t want it anymore. Instead, I will be focusing for the US market with bigger fights, especially for the legend Crawford.
I only target big fights at fair prices, so of course anyone who likes easy fights won’t like that. And I know how he feels after losing to Bivol, so he’s been looking for easier fights ever since. Also, I’m not the one who’s afraid of fighting Benavidez or Crawford. Therefore, I knew he was wasting our time and making excuses with big amounts of money that can’t be paid.”
Canelo replied saying he respected Turki and said WBO super-lightweight champion Teofimo Lopez ‘deserved’ the fight more.
“I’m not asking for that fight. I think Teofimo Lopez deserves it more than me. My response to Turki is this – yesterday they text me to talk about the Crawford fight in February and I said, ‘I’m not gonna talk about any other fight, I’m focused 100% on this [Edgar Berlanga] fight.’
I respect Turki, but if he wants to work with me, it needs to be my way.”
Lopez has made it clear he wants to face the pound-for-pound star. He branded Crawford’s performance against Madrimov as ‘trash’ and dared him to face him in the ring next.
