There was one fight Terence Crawford was seemingly prepared to consider before he announced his retirement from boxing.
The American fighter removed his gloves for the final time of his career in 2025 when he outfoxed Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez over 12 rounds, arguably the finest performance of his career even including the all-time great thrashing he gave Errol Spence Jr. in a welterweight unification that had been billed as a 50-50 contest.
Victory over Canelo advanced his pro record to 42-0 (31 KOs) and ensured he picked up the major world championship belts at super middleweight to become a five-weight world boxing champ.
And if he were to ever return to the ring for a 43rd fight, it would perhaps have made sense to drop from 168 pounds to 160, and campaign for a title at middleweight, in what would have been his sixth weight class.
According to ‘Bud,’ when speaking to Jai McAllister on YouTube, there was a “dangerous” fight there he contemplated taking in that division, but it all fell apart only recently.
After he beat Canelo, “I was like well, go down to 160 and do it again” to win a championship in a sixth weight class, and become undisputed champion in four divisions. “But Janibek [Alimkhanuly, WBO and IBF champion] popped.”
If Janibek posted negative drug test results instead of flagging for the banned substance meldonium, then he’d have proceeded to a unification fight against Erislandy Lara in a bout that would have rewarded the winner with three of the middleweight world championship titles.
“It was a thought” Crawford admits he had, to go drop to 160 and challenge the winner of that fight. “To dare to be great and fight for something meaningful,” he said.
Crawford continued: “Even though their names wasn’t the biggest … that’s what we do it for.”
“Janibek is a dangerous challenge.”
Crawford continued: “I knew, going over there, fighting Janibek, people would’ve been tuning in to that type of fight. Especially if had somehow beat Carlos Adames, and [became the] undisputed [champion].
“Then you [have a fight] undisputed vs undisputed. It didn’t happen. So, you know what, I was like this is God telling me you ain’t got nothing left to prove.”
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