Terence Crawford and Canelo Alvarez trade verbal barbs ahead of September undisputed title showdown

Alvarez questioned Crawford’s resume while Crawford vowed to bring the fight to the Mexican star

The Sept. 13 clash between Terence “Bud” Crawford and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez for Alvarez’s undisputed supper middleweight championship is set as possibly the biggest fight of 2025. The fighters have begun doing media work to promote the fight, and while expressing respect for one another, their words have gotten chippy.

There had been some worry that Crawford would be taking too big of a jump in weight to face Alvarez. He’d won the WBO lightweight title in 2014 before jumping to junior welterweight, where he would become undisputed champion in 2017 and then move to welterweight, where he repeated the accomplishment of becoming undisputed champ with a dominant win over Errol Spence Jr. in 2023.

After going undisputed at welterweight, Crawford began angling for the Alvarez fight, which would take place all the way up at 168 pounds. Since beating Spence, Crawford has only fought once, a hard-earned decision over Israil Madrimov at junior middleweight.

But Alvarez put in a dull effort against William Scull in a May fight in which he regained the IBF title to become undisputed super middleweight champion for the second time in his career. That performance, which saw Alvarez throw a CompuBox record low amount of punches at 152, led many to reevaluate Crawford’s chances of making the jump to 168 and picking up the win.

Alvarez and Crawford recently appeared on “The G.O.A.T.S Podcast” with Tom Brady and Shaquille O’Neal where Alvarez took a few shots at Crawford’s past level of opposition.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Alvarez said on the podcast. “He’s a good fighter, a great fighter. I always say before I see him calling me out and want to fight and everything, I say before he’s a great fighter. But if you look at his career, mention one elite fighter. Just mention to me one elite fighter.”

Crawford called back to his 2016 win over Viktor Postol, the first time Postol had suffered a professional defeat (and the first fight in a stretch where Postol would go 4-5 to date.

“So Postol wasn’t elite?” Crawford said. “Viktor Postol.”

Alvarez’s response was short as he asked, “Who’s that guy?”

“Oh, so because he’s not commercialized he wasn’t great,” Crawford said. “Ricky Burns wasn’t elite?”

“A 40-year-old champion in that moment beat Viktor Postol in my gym,” Canelo said. “I saw that. Ricky Burns wasn’t elite. Those are champions, good fighters, but elite fighters are different. … We’re going to find out. And don’t get me wrong, you’re a great fighter, but you’re going to find out. I hope your uncle Turki Alalshikh paid you enough money because it’s going to be the last, that’s for sure.”

Alalshikh, the Saudi Arabian who has become boxing’s biggest power player of late, has added a knockout bonus to the fight as an incentive in an attempt to keep the action level high. That decision was spurred on by two recent Alalshikh cards (the second of which was headlined by Alvarez vs. Scull) that produced several dull fights.

At Monday’s press conference in New York, Crawford made it clear he plans to bring the fight directly to Alvarez at Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium.

“The only running that I’m going to be doing is running upside his head,” Crawford said. “And I can assure you that. Facts. And he’s got a big head, too.”