Santos Saúl Álvarez Barragán vs. Terence Allan Crawford, Jr.

Can't stand either one of them, but I've already had the pleasure of seeing Canelo lose twice... officially. The novelty has worn off. The profoundly overrated Crawford on the other hand, hopefully this time around he won't have the option to be outboxed for much of the match and get to bail himself out with a late round KO. My only reservation is when he gets laid flat on his back, all of the Crawford fanboys will immediately and predictably denigrate the loss and say, but... but... but... this fight shouldn't have happened, he was fighting way above his natural weight! This was a money grab! Yeah well... the fight will happen, it's sanctioned, Bud agreed to the terms, no one told him to trade his 0 for cash money, it's a legit fight and if he loses, it'll be a legit loss.

As far as why I think Canelo will win, Crawford at 154 was noticeably far slower than he was at 147, so I highly I doubt that Crawford will be magically faster 2 weight divisions north. Add to that, he arguably deserved to lose a close decision to Madrimov, and the tight official scorecards reflected that. Not saying Canelo is as technically skilled as Madrimov, but his chin is so damned solid he won't have to be ultra cautious with Bud. At this point, Bud is getting old, he's not nearly as adept at running a foot race as he used to be, he also has more bravado than the cowardly Scull, so I'm not sure he'll even try, which could be his undoing, because he's also getting increasingly easy to outbox. Weight divisions exist for a reason, and this isn't Drainelo we're talking about, this is a fully hydrated 168 pound Tankelo. Also let's be honest, Crawford is no Mayweather or even Lara skill wise. He's certainly isn't on GGG's level. It'll probably look like the Charlo match, and if that's the case, maybe he won't score a KO, but certainly win on points.

My posting history on here shows that by no means am I a Canelo Alvarez fanboy or defender. I think he's become a cherry picking, lazy, money grubbing, dispassionate bore who's been going through the motions and coasting since his loss to Bivol, who's had his fair share of crooked undeserved decisions unfairly go in his favor. I think recently most of his opponents have showed up for a paycheck and with hopes to see the final bell. Which granted is understandable, because the last two that actually tried to win were Saunders and Plant and they got stopped because of that. Yeah, I know Canelo's power is overrated, but he's not in there throwing powder puffs either, because most of his opponents make no attempt to throw with conviction and immediately go into survival mode. The people who've deluded themselves into believing he's one of the greatest fighters of all time are know nothing casuals or are in full blown denial about all of the short cuts he's taken and special A-side favors and treatment he's received.

That being said, who exactly has Terence Crawford beaten that would make him an all time great either? He has one of the most woeful resumes for a P4P fighter I've seen in a very long time. Also, where is this elite skillset that people speak of and why does it always seem to go on walkabout for the first 4 or 5 rounds of every match he partakes in? The higher he moves up in weight, the more he's needed to rely on that power to bail himself out of some pretty sticky situations. He lost 5 rounds to Kavaliauskas and by all rights should have been down 88-83 going into the 10th round against Porter. Also in his debut at 154, he struggled mightily against Madrimov and even if you think Bud won, he still lost 5 rounds. Bud has certainly never shared the ring with fighters that are the same caliber as Floyd Mayweather Jr., Gennady Golovkin, Erislandy Lara, Sergey Kovalev, Dmitrii Bivol, Miguel Cotto, Shane Mosley, or quite frankly even an Austin Trout, Daniel Jacobs, Callum Smith, Caleb Plant, Billy Joe Saunders level fighter. Okay... Porter is solid, but at best he lost to Spence, Brook and Thurman, and barely beat Danny Garcia, which in retrospect a lot less impressive than it might've seemed at the time. As far as Spence goes, H2H all of the aforementioned fighters would've toyed with him. Then when you take into consideration that Spence was an accident victim and drained walking corpse when he stepped into the ring, with a guy he was stylistically always going to lose to. It makes it far less impressive in retrospect. Spence was essentially John Ryder level but less sturdy, after he made his car do 8 cartwheels.

So sure, Canelo should've lost to Lara, Golovkinx2, Trout, was losing badly to a drained half dead Kovalev, and did lose to Mayweather and Bivol. But... so would Bud. Bud is not a Super Middleweight, and all the skills in the world are not going to make up for that. Canelo is relentless, throws nothing but haymakers now, and Bud's punches will feel like dandelion ray florets gently brushing through Canelo's ginger whiskers.

Mull his over, the last guys he stopped were Saunders and Plant, who are actual Super Middleweights compared to Crawford, who'll be a chubby Welterweight. I doubt the current version of Canelo would stop that Saunders, but Plant is trash and he gasses late, so at the very least, he might drop him a time or two. Clenelo's vicious KO power has vanished, obviously because he's not roided to the gills, but he still hits hard enough to keep legit SMW's skittish. He tamed Munguia and Berlangy's asses real quick, and Scull didn't wait around long enough to taste his power, that mother****er was motoring around the ring at the speed of light, he pinned the gas pedal to the floor and went full throttle the moment the bell rang. So it's not like he's featherfisted, which I think a lot of people are naively convincing themselves of, maybe even Bud himself. Personally, Bud asked himself the question, why stick around LMW and fight the likes of Ortiz, Ennis, Murtazaliev, Fundora, Bohachuk and Zayas? When he barely beat Madrimov. Alimkhanuly destroys him at 160, other than that it's a wasteland. So to Bud, this is a gamble and his best possible option. If he loses, Canelo was too big, he dared to be great... no big deal. If he wins, he'll proclaim himself the greatest of this era and retire. So I don't think he's confident but merely taking a calculated risk, which may not pay off.