Former multi-weight world champion Mikey Garcia feels that Terence Crawford needs to come in lighter for his fight against unified super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez on September 13th. Mikey wants to see Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs) box, change stances and angles to outsmart Canelo (62-2-2, 39 KOs).

On the positive side, Mikey says Crawford will get “bags of money” in his fight with Canelo, and that’s what it’s all about. Even if the soon-to-be 38-year-old Crawford gets trounced by Canelo, he’ll go home with a lot of money. Fans will be angry, but only the ones that fail realize what this fight is truly about—money, not sport. In a sport, an athlete has to earn a chance to compete for the gold. Crawford isn’t doing that. So, this is a celebrity match.

Garcia thinks Crawford shouldn’t bulk up for this fight because he won’t be the stronger fighter against Canelo. In his last fight against former WBA junior middleweight champion Israil Madrimov on August 3rd, Terence already showed that his power wasn’t the same at 154 as it had been at 147 and other weight classes.

No Tune-up

Crawford is going up another two divisions after a 1+ year layoff to fight Canelo at 168, will likely result in his power being even less significant in this weight class. Terence has shown not to take a fight to acclimatize himself at super middleweight or just to stay sharp. He’d rather sit and wait, making some fans suspect that his main focus for this fight is a bank heist, to take advantage of the people paying him a lot of money.

The honorable thing for Crawford to do for them, for the boxing public and himself would be to go up to 168, and beat a top contender to get some experience before facing Canelo in September. The fight is already guaranteed for Crawford. So, what does he have to lose by getting a tuneup first? Turki Alalshikh isn’t going to change his mind about putting on the Canelo-Crawford fight if Terence loses in a warm-up fight. Crawford’s resistance to tune up makes it clear that this is all about money for him, adding to his retirement nest egg, with the golden handshake corporations give to CEOs as they go out the door.

“Crawford is super talented, one of the most talented fighters I’ve seen. I think size does matter at that point, because you saw a little bit already when he fought Madrimov,” said Mikey Garcia to Fighthype about Terence Crawford being a little too small to be fighting Canelo Alvarez at super middleweight. “It wasn’t the Crawford that we’re used to seeing.”

Size matters in this fight. We saw Israil Madrimov easily took Crawford’s weaker shots and lit him up, making his head look like an old-fashioned pinball machine. Crawford has no power at 154, and definitely won’t at 168. That’s why he won’t take the tune-up and stopped talking about wanting to become undisputed at 154. The Madrimov fight brought Terence down to earth.

“Now, moving up two extra weight classes will be a big challenge, but they’re both going home with bags full of money. That’s all that matters. They’re going to face their biggest challenge, but you walk away with all that money, and then just the experience being there, that’s a win in itself.

“I say box. Don’t try and measure yourself in strength and size when you’re fighting Canelo. I actually like to see him [Crawford]. Don’t try and be as strong as Canelo. Box, box, box. Be elusive, be fast and use your experience. Turn southpaw and back to right and confuse Canelo. That’s what you got going for you.

“Canelo has the size. Fighting with combinations, pressure, and using the advantage of being heavier all night. Use your power. Thats what Canelo kind of has to do,” said Mikey.

Boring Fight?

We already heard from Crawford’s trainer, Brian ‘BoMac’ McIntyre, about the Canelo fight’s game plan. BoMac said they’re going to follow the Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Dmitry Bivol blueprints by boxing, jabbing, moving, and holding Canelo to keep him from landing his shots. It’s going to be an ugly fight, very boring to watch, and the fans will feel like they were duped.