09/18/2025
Crawford vs. Canelo -- a fight for the ages.
In watching the recent fight between Terence "Bud" Crawford, and Canelo Alvarez, I was taken by how similar it was to the fight in which Crawford knocked out Earl Spence. The reason is Canelo and Spence are similar in one way. While both are exceptional fighters, they both have a very limited, and predictable tactical approach.
In both fights, Crawford first completely shut down their jab with a very clever old school move. While jabbing them steadily, whenever THEY threw the jab, or even the straight right, Bud would rotate slightly to the side while pushing the punch with his glove sideways past his face, so it missed him, but KEPT GOING. This accomplished what in old school boxing parlance is called "hanging them out to dry" meaning letting them miss cleanly so they are completely off balance with their arm extended and their weight on their front foot. At that point Bud would counter with a straight left, jab, or uppercut. By dominating offensively and defensively in that most distant jab zone, (and having 2" of reach,) Bud limited Canelo to nothing but lunging hooks and right hands, typically at the end of a hop step or two.
Then came the second BRILLIANT read of Canelo's game -- the dismantlement of Canelo's biggest weapon, the left hook to the body. Before the fight I worried that if Canelo landed that hook solid just once, it generally changed a fight, and from then on the opponent focused on nothing else but trying NOT to get hit by that shot again. And at that point the fight is basically over, that is, if they didn't go down or out. So, I was concerned, but I thought Bud would find an answer. And he did. Bud clearly studied and trained intensively for Canelo, for every time, and I mean it repeated in over a dozen examples I watched on slow-mo, when Canelo would lunge forward to land that big left hook, Bud would simply step IN (not back like most people) with his right foot just outside of Canelo's lead left foot as it landed from his hop, then as Canelo pulled his arm back to launch the big hook, (he always telegraphs that hook) Crawford would simply hold his right arm tight to his side and rotate in just slightly closing off his side and ribs and offering nothing but his arm and a glancing blow off his back, and every time it made Canelo's wrist stop on his arm or back, wihtout really "landing" the punch. It looked like he was slapping the hook, instead of turning it over for power, but Bud actually stopped it with his arm before it could finish. It sometimes looked like it landed partially, and the commentators would exclaim that Canelo landed one and Bud took it well, but that's because they NEVER really landed. Not one. Crawford didn't TAKE Canelo's power, he never got hit with it. Not once.
Then, as Canelo is effectively "hung out," with his arm extended, and his weight on his front foot, Bud would counter him with a straight left, upper cut, or even a jab, often followed by a couple more punches before he pivoted away.
Those two strategies alone completely dismantled Canelo's whole offensive game, and it was remarkably similar to the way Bud dismantled Spence's game by robbing him of his jab and straight left. It was truly a master class in boxing that I have not seen maybe ever. In the sweet science it was pure poetry. And we are very lucky to be able to see a fighter today, that is literally on the level of a Sugar Ray Robinson, Sugar Ray Leonard, or Roberto Duran. Of all the boxers I have seen before Crawford, only Duran could face a truly great fighter and just handle them with ease, like it was fun. Watch what he did to Iran Barkely, a MUCH bigger middleweight champion. I would suggest that quite possibly Bud is better than the any of the 4 kings, because although those fighters had truly superb skills and epic fights, I never saw any of them so completely invalidate a fighter of Canelo's caliber. Not even Duran or Leonard, or even Robinson. It wasn't a big knockout, it was worse. He made Canelo look like an amateur, and I'll take getting knocked out over THAT, any day.
Lastly, before the fight, all the talking heads kept repeating that because Bud was moving up two weight classes, Canelo had a huge advantage, because even though they were roughly the same size, Canelo had been fighting much bigger opponents for a couple years, and even knocking some of them out. What ALL these "experts" missed, and had I said a few weeks ago, was that Bud might have the advantage, because he was every bit as big as Canelo, (that was obvious when you saw them face to face,) but Bud had been fighting much smaller, quicker men for the two years prior, and so he had to be MUCH faster to compete with 147 pounders. And that speed, or rather quickness, along with his tactical genius gave Crawford a significant advantage in this fight. In boxing, it's said that speed wins, and Crawford was always one step ahead of Canelo. Just milliseconds maybe, but I bet they felt like seconds to Canelo.
For those who didn't see the fight, but do like boxing, I STRONGLY recommend you watch this one. It was a once in a lifetime display of mastery in a sport that has had so many truly epic champions. A level of skill far surpassing Floyd Mayweather, the previously acclaimed generational pound-for-pound champ. Canelo, who fought them both even said after the fight, and I quote, "Crawford is better than Mayweather. He's much better." And he's right. Only maybe Manny Pacquaio was in that rarefied air, for a time, in his prime. It's nice to know that the timeless skills and techniques, (and absolutely laser focus) Crawford exhibited Saturday are not lost to the past. They were only waiting for the man from Omaha.
