David Benavidez has weighed in on the upcoming super-fight between Terence Crawford and Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez.
The modern greats are set to do battle in their highly-anticipated ‘super-fight’ on Saturday September 13 at the Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada.
‘Bud’ Crawford will make the jump up in two weight classes ahead of his showdown with the Mexican icon, having spent the majority of his exceptional professional campaigning at the welterweight limit.
The 37-year-old from Omaha, Nebraska made boxing history by becoming the first undisputed welterweight champion of the ‘four belt era’ when he defeated Errol Spence Jr back in 2023, before he made the move to light-middleweight to dethrone former WBA champion Israil Madrimov last August.
Speaking on The Ariel Helwani Show back when the bout was originally agreed, Benavidez favoured ‘Bud’ over the Mexican superstar.
“It’s a good fight for both of them, I think it’s more important for Crawford than anybody. I think if anybody can beat Canelo I think Crawford could.
I think I’d give him like a 7 out of 10. Crawford is good and I think that it’s been known he’s gonna fight Canelo for a long, long time and Crawford likes to pick up the weight so I’m sure he’s been working on the weights for a long, long time.”
However, in a more recent interview with Fight Hub TV, the ‘Mexican Monster’ now has Canelo as the slight favourite.
“It’s a good fight, more like a 60/40 [to Canelo] only because of the weight difference but you can’t take Crawford’s skill away you know, you have to give him credit for his skill, he’s an amazing fighter, he’s an amazing technician in the ring, I think it’s like 60/40.”
Canelo has been a dominant force at 168lbs since he made the move up from middleweight 7-years-ago, defeating the likes of Gennady Golovkin, Caleb Plant and Billy Joe Saunders during this time.
As for Crawford, the unbeaten 37-year-old could become the first fighter in male boxing history to win an undisputed championship in three weight classes, having already achieved this feat at super-lightweight and welterweight respectively.
