Canelo Alvarez has spent his major career fighting from 154 to 175 lbs, and Terence Crawford has spent his fighting between 135 and, for one fight, 154. That hasn’t left much room for overlap in opposition between them ahead of their September 13 fight, but Amir Khan has faced both men.
Khan jumped up to a 155 lb contract weight to get knocked out by Alvarez in the sixth round back in 2016, and three years later he was again stopped in six in a welterweight bout with Crawford, and he sat down with Sky
Sports to discuss the upcoming mega-fight.
“Both fighters are great, they’re both great at what they do,” Khan said. “When I fought Canelo, you know, he was easier to hit. He had slow feet but fast hands. I never expected him to have the fast hands he had, and obviously, he caught me. He has a lot of power, so that’s one thing Crawford has to worry about, the size and the power.
“But then again, I saw a picture of Crawford where he was weighing around 180 lbs, looked strong, looked big, and I think he holds the weight well. And he’s another fighter that’s very strong, very powerful, so you know what? I do lean more towards Crawford in this fight, because he’s the more fresher fighter. He’s not been in too many wars like Canelo’s been in.
“But this is top-level boxing, this is, so I don’t know who’s going to win. But I do lean more towards Crawford.”
With full respect to Khan’s first-hand knowledge of the two, it probably should be stressed that Khan faced Canelo as super welterweights, and it was nine years ago. That was not today’s Canelo, in ways both good and bad, but notably, this is a bulked-up Canelo who has spent about five years at 168 now, even dabbling twice at 175. And though Khan’s fight with Crawford was more recent, that was also six years ago now. Crawford hasn’t moved up in weight much, but Crawford is effectively jumping from 147 to 168 here, with just the one fight at 154 between, and that’s more of a wild card situation.
Conventional wisdom is that Canelo is too big for Crawford, and that Crawford won’t have such an advantage in skill that he can make up for that, but we are seeing more and more people, in and around boxing, stating their belief in Crawford’s chances. Whether that’s a trick of the brain — people are going to spend time watching it, and they might as well convince themselves it’ll be good — or there’s something more there will be found out on fight night.
