A much-talked-about potential fight between Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez and Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford has been given an update by Turki Alalshikh, the chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, and the one man who might be able to make it happen.
Alvarez is coming off yet another impressive win over the Cinco De Mayo weekend when he took on fellow Mexican Jamie Munguia.
Despite Munguia being on a hot streak and being the younger man, Canelo put on a fine boxing showcase and kept Munguia quiet throughout and knocked him down with a big uppercut in the fourth round, He eventually ran out a wide points winner to retain his undisputed super middleweight status.
He has long been mooted as a potential opponent for Crawford, a fellow pound-for-pound king and fellow former undisputed champion in two divisions, most recently welterweight when he unified against Errol Spence Jr last summer.
Next up for Crawford is Israil Madrimov up a new weight that will see him challenging for the WBA junior middleweight title on August 3 in Los Angeles.
Speaking to ESPN, Alalshikh spoke of his desire to sort out the sport and put the best with the best.
“We need to improve it with something else, we have a strategic vision where we have identified untapped opportunities and are committed to market improvement. Now my strategy, each card the result of it connects with another card. I deal with everyone.
“When I started in this field, in the beginning [the promoters] competed against each other but now we managed to get them all to work together.”
The fight between Crawford and Madrimov is proof of that as the card features fighters from many different promotions including Matchroom, PBC, Top Rank and Golden Boy and is the first to be presented by Riyadh Season in the United States.
Those fighters include Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz defending his WBA junior welterweight title against Jose Valenzuela and Tim Tszyu, fresh off a loss from Sebastian Fundora which most people put down to a bad cut that affected his vision, is stepping straight back in against the knockout artist Vergil Ortiz Jr.
Deontay Wilder is also said to be taking on the undefeated Jared Anderson and Andy Ruiz is set to return vs. Jarrell Miller.
With all those different promoters working together, and now with the influence that Alalshikh yields, a fight between Crawford, should he come through against Madrimov, and Canelo, seems closer than ever.
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