Ilia Topuria has strong opinions on what would happen if he were to face Terence Crawford in a boxing ring.
Crawford is set to fight Canelo Alvarez next weekend (Sat. Sept. 13) at Allegiant Stadium in what is being dubbed ‘The Fight of the Century.’ The fact that so many are giving “Bud” a solid chance against the much larger Canelo tells you how impressive his boxing skills are. But according to Topuria, that wouldn’t change how things would go if he ever faced Crawford.
“I won’t talk about what would
happen between me and Crawford in an octagon,” Topuria wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “I’ll talk about what would happen in a ring. I put him to sleep in the first contact!!”
Photos of Topuria meeting Crawford at the UFC Performance Institute in June show their relative size to each other. Similar to Topuria, Crawford fought at 147 pounds before moving up to 154. Now he’s facing Canelo at 168 pounds, meaning he’s now bigger than “El Matador.”
It feels ridiculous on its face to hear Topuria declare he’d beat one of the best boxers of this era when he’s never even had a pro boxing match. His striking in MMA is impressive and he has wild knockout power, but Crawford is 41-0 with 31 KOs and was the undisputed welterweight champ and unified light welterweight champ.
Even comparing apples to oranges, all of Topuria’s impressive accomplishments in MMA barely begin to scratch what Crawford has achieved over his boxing career. Ilia does have a history of talking big and backing it up in the cage, though.
We’re unsurprised that Topuria is taking this moment to call out Crawford. There’s few UFC champs that wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to box, considering how much more money stars in that sport make. Crawford has claimed he’s making $10 million to fight Canelo, but reports have various backend agreements pushing that number up as high as $50 million. The most popular UFC champions would be lucky to make between $5 and $10 million for a particularly big fight.
So why not call out Terence Crawford? Win or lose, Topuria stands to make multiples of what he’d make if he stayed in his lane and kept defending his UFC lightweight belt. We don’t see it happening, though. UFC’s parent company TKO doesn’t want their MMA fighters making boxing money. If anything, their eventual goal is to drive boxing money down to MMA levels.
But Saudi Arabia’s involvement is a wildcard worth considering. TKO business partner Turki Alalshikh is known for getting what he wants, so if “El Matador” can capture his attention, who knows what could happen in the future.
