David Benavidez and Terence Crawford are both in the market for a fight against Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez.
Benavidez recently gave up his mandatory position for the match-up after trying to force it to happen. He will instead campaign at light-heavyweight for the foreseeable. Now a four-weight world champion, Crawford wants to move up a further two divisions to challenge Canelo.
The Mexican has been largely dismissive of both fights in the past but has always been adamant that he will make them happen for the right money. That money will likely come from Saudi Arabia.
In an interview with Sean Zittel, the undefeated ‘El Monstruo’ said he had been contacted by Riyadh Season’s Turki Alalshikh not about the Canelo bout, but Crawford. The only problem? It would be at middleweight.
“I’ll tell you, he did mention one fight… He wanted me to go down to 160 to fight Crawford. I’m like bro I cannot do that. If I could be able to make 160 that would’ve been amazing, but I can’t. I don’t remember the last time I weighed 160 … I would love to share the ring with him just not at 160.”
Despite Crawford’s one remaining goal in the sport being a move up to 168, the caveat on that is that it is against unified super-middleweight champion. When asked in the past if he would jump up to the division and face Benavidez instead, he has said no.
Ironically, ‘Bud’ looks more likely to land the fight now than Benavidez even though the latter has been chasing it for years and has a better claim to it. Alalshikh has said he wants to make both, but with Benavidez now seems focused on the winner of the undisputed 175 pound bout between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol.
