Canelo Alvarez vs. Terence Crawford has been the megafight within boxing that has been talked about month in recent months, but it appears that the potential showdown has suffered a major blow and been ruled out of ever happening.
Crawford became a four-weight world champion on Saturday with a victory over Israil Madrimov, and attention immediately turned to a future clash with Canelo.
The Mexican star defends his WBC, WBA and WBO super-middleweight titles against Edgar Berlanga next month, with a potential clash against Crawford set to happen in 2025 at the earliest.
It was thought the one stumbling block would have been the weight, but it seems that it will no longer even be for debate, after Saudi chief Turki Al-Alshikh declared that he no longer has any plans to make the fight between Canelo and Crawford.
“Just wrapped up an important meeting now with my team, planning for the upcoming fights that we will make for 2024-2025. I decided to disregard the Canelo fight, as I don’t want it anymore.
“Instead, I will be focusing for the US market with bigger fights, especially for the legend Crawford.
Additionally, I will support making fights for Boots, Haney, Shakur, Ortiz, Anderson, Benavidez, Zepeda and more, regarding Tim Tszyu, there’s something unclear with the communications from his team with our team, so I believe I will reconsider his situation.
“For the rest of the world, definitely, I am focusing on Riyadh Season card, Wembley edition 21st of September (AJ vs. Dubois) and depending on the results and the results of Riyadh Season’s opening card (Bivol vs. Beterbiev) on the 12th of October, I will build the card for the rematch of Fury vs. Usyk on the 21st of December and another big card on the first quarter of 2025. Stay tuned.”
It is currently unknown why Al-Alshikh has opted to walk away from making a Canelo vs. Crawford fight, with the Saudi chief having never failed in the past to make any of the superfights he wanted to see take place.
He has successfully been able to make undisputed fights such as Tyson Fury vs. Oleksandr Usyk and Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol, but it seems any hopes that boxing fans had of seeing Canelo and Crawford step into the ring together are now ruled out.
Boxing Social is now on WhatsApp! Join our channel by clicking here and getting all the latest boxing news direct to your phone.