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Under the byline of “The Ring Staff,” Ring Magazine announced yesterday that the supposedly agreed-upon showdown between Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford was “now canceled.” The article declined to elaborate, instead promising more details “when obtained,” but we now have an explanation: Mike Coppinger reports that Turki Alalshikh pulled the plug in response to Alvarez’s brewing May clash with Jake Paul.
Per Coppinger, the Crawford (41-0, 31 KO) fight was meant to kick off a “lucrative three-fight deal.” Alalshikh will instead pursue a significantly better and more clamored-for opponent for “Bud”: IBF welterweight champion Jaron “Boots” Ennis, who meets Eimantas Stanionis in a unification bout this coming April.
In hindsight, this is not a shocking development. Alvarez (62-2-2, 39 KO) has been vocally disdainful of the Crawford fight since it was first proposed and shown zero of the wider boxing world’s fawning deference for Alalshikh. To quote Alvarez:
“I’m not asking for that fight. They want to make that fight because it’s a payday obviously, but I don’t want that fight.”
Money was the motivating factor here. If he can get a similar quantity against an astronomically worse opponent, all without being on the hook for two more fights, why wouldn’t he take this road? Shame has never factored into Canelo’s decision-making and the sanctioning bodies have given him free rein to choose his opponents.
If Canelo vs Paul is the price we have to pay for Bud vs Boots, I’ll take it.
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