Terence Crawford is many things.
He’s a five-weight world boxing champion, an ambassadorial figure who carried himself with class in an oft-scandalous sport, and a mentor to the next generation paving their own way in the pound-for-pound picture — like Shakur Stevenson.
For the WBC President, Mauricio Sulaiman, Crawford is also a coward.
It’s arguable that cowardice and Crawford have never belonged together in the same sentence before, particularly as he competed in some of the most meaningful fights of the modern era, as he delivered one of the welterweight division’s all-time great thrashings when he finished Errol Spence Jr. with an apparent ease in 2023.
But he seemingly one-upped that legendary performance by besting Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez over 12 rounds in 2025.
Rather than gun for a championship in a sixth weight division at middleweight — something he claims he was tempted by — ‘Bud’ retired forever, instead.
For Sulaiman, that is apparently the actions of a coward.
The WBC boss was surveying the landscape in and around super middleweight to discuss viable options for Canelo when he made the comments.
“Canelo has many options,” he said.
He then listed David Benavidez and Jermall Charlo among those options — possibly even a rematch with Crawford “who retired cowardly,” he said.
Other fighters Canelo could challenge, per Sulaiman, were Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev.
Crawford had not responded to Sulaiman’s remarks at the time of publication.
