Promoter Oscar De La Hoya rejects the idea that Canelo Alvarez vs. Terence Crawford is the “biggest fight in boxing.” He notes that Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs) will turn 38 on September 28th, and is coming off a poor performance in which he was exposed by Israil Madrimov last August.

De La Hoya adds that Canelo is “35” and has been getting “exposed” over the previous three years. Alvarez is actually 34, but will turn 35 on July 18th. However, he’s fighting like he’s 44, and looked 100% washed up in his last three fights.

Age Has Decimated Both Fighters

Turki Alalshikh is the one who said Canelo-Crawford is “The biggest fight,” but you can understand why he would get a little carried away. He needs to market the fight to the public, and if he gets them believing it’s the “biggest fight,” they’ll be more apt to purchase the event on PPV. Moreover, Crawford is one of Turki’s favorite fighters.

So, he’s excited about seeing him fight what’s left of Alvarez, who looks like he’s operating at 40% capacity after 20 years in the pros. Canelo is likened to an old car with 300,000 miles on it, spitting blue smoke out its tailpipe, unable to be driven at high speeds. That’s why he fights at a glacially slow pace and throws only a handful of punches. His engine is shot. Canelo threw only 152 punches in his last fight against William Scull on May 3rd, and even with that small number, he was gassed out.

Crawford looks just as old and shot as Canelo. He’s not even trying to fight any of the killers at 168, 160 or 154 after his bad experience against Madrimov. That’s a red flag that Crawford doesn’t want to be found out by the public, seeing what little he has left. If Terence were to take on one of the apex predators at super middleweight like, Osleys Iglesias or Christian Mbilli, he’d be in serious trouble. He’d lose, and then that Canelo fight might go bye-bye.

Don’t Insult the Legends with This

Fans sometimes compare Crawford to Sugar Ray Leonard and Sugar Ray Robinson. But do you think those two talents would have played it safe the way Crawford has been doing in the last year? They also had much better resumes than he did. Crawford is empty except for the car-crash-wrecked Errol Spence and Madrimov. You can’t count either of those as high-level victories for Crawford because he wasn’t fighting the best.

So hear me out
Crawford will be 38
And Canelo is 35
Crawford hasn’t fought in a year and got exposed by Madrimov IMO
Canelo has been getting exposed for the past few years
Can anyone please explain to me how this is the “biggest fight in boxing”?

— Oscar De La Hoya (@OscarDeLaHoya) May 14, 2025