Shakur Stevenson predicts Terence Crawford will “box the s*** out of Canelo and make it look easy” if they fight this September on the Mexican Independence Day holiday weekend.
The lightweight champion Stevenson feels that Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs) is on another level despite being much smaller and never having fought at super middleweight to prove that he is.
We certainly can’t look at Crawford’s best career wins, a razor-close decision against Israil Madrimov, and a knockout of the car crash, the weight-drained, injury-plagued, and inactive shell of Errol Spence to say he’s shown that he’s on another level to Canelo. Those two fights showed that Crawford wasn’t good enough to beat the top killers at 154, 160, or 168.
Crawford’s Challenge
If Turki Al-Sheikh wanted to show Crawford some tough love, he’d tell him that he must show that he’s capable of beating these three to earn the Canelo Alvarez fight:
- David Benavidez
- Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol 2 winner
- David Morrell
That would not only allow Crawford to earn the golden parachute retirement money, which would give him a soft landing into retirement, but it would also make the Canelo-Crawford fight resemble a sport rather than a celebrity event, similar to professional wrestling.
If boxing is ever to be considered an actual sport like the NBA, NFL, and NHL worldwide, fighters must endure testing fights to prove themselves and earn championship matches.
“Canelo outboxed the s**** out of him,” predicts Shakur about the Terence Crawford vs. Canelo Alvarez fight in September. “Yeah, for sure,” said Shakur Stevenson to iFL TV when asked if Crawford ‘makes it look easy’ beating Canelo. “Terence is crazy. That dude is psycho,” Shakur said about Bud not asking for a rehydration clause from the Mexican superstar.
“Canelo is one of the biggest names in the sport of boxing. You can’t ask for a rehydration clause against someone like that,” said Stevenson.
Pot of Gold at the End
I don’t mind Crawford getting a fight against Canelo, as long as he earns it by running through David Benavidez, the Beterbiev-Bivol 2 winner, and Morrell. Look at it this way. Benavidez and Morrell have been waiting a lot longer than Bud for a fight against Canelo and were ignored as if they didn’t exist on this planet.
Both of them deserve a fight against Canelo more than Crawford, who just barely got through his last fight by the skin of his teeth in his debut at 154 against Madrimov.
The only reason I threw in Beterbiev and Bivol into the mix is because I think Turki Al-Sheikh might like the idea of the attention to a fight involving those guys and Crawford with the golden prize, Canelo at the end of the rainbow, the pot of gold for the ultimate winner.
