Terence Crawford is moving up two weight divisions to face Canelo Alvarez for his undisputed super-middleweight crown, but has been given a firm warning ahead of the mega-fight.
Terence Crawford remains undefeated after 41 fights and is stepping into the biggest risk of his entire career as he moves up to super-middleweight following his razor-close win over Israil Madrimov at super-welterweight.
Bud believes he has what it takes to defeat the face of boxing, and will have the chance to do it next month in Las Vegas.
Though many are writing Crawford off on account of him being too small, one man thinks the problem may be the complete opposite.
Gennady Golovkin’s trainer thinks Terence Crawford is gaining too much weight
Abel Sanchez, the world-class trainer who worked alongside Canelo‘s biggest rival, Gennady Golovkin, for years, has come out and warned Crawford that he is making a big mistake in putting on too much weight for the fight.
Sanchez previewed the fight, “To have a guy come up from 140 pounds in such a short period of time, I’m not saying he couldn’t have done it if he had taken three or four years like Canelo did and built up his, not only his strength but his bulk in the correct way, he would’ve had a better chance but to do it in 14/15 months that he’s done it in, it’s going to be difficult for him.”
“I think it’s a tough fight for the first three or four rounds because of his speed. […] But once Canelo assimilates his speed and assimilates his movement, Crawford’s going to be a lot slower because of the weight also, once he does that I think it’ll be a spar session for Canelo.”
Sanchez explained how he believes the extra weight will serve very little benefit to Crawford against Canelo, as he has not had time to acclimatise to it and will therefore not reap enough benefits in terms of power, and will instead face mostly detriments such as reduced speed,
“I don’t think it will benefit him. I’m really looking forward to seeing what he weighs on fight night. The reports are, that I’ve read, that he’s up at 180 pounds or 190 pounds, so if he drops down to 168 I think it’ll be too much. I thought that maybe 160, 158 maybe was the best for him, but if he comes in at 168 or 170 pounds by fight night I think it’ll be too much.”
“I think he’ll be slower. He’s not going to punch any harder just because he got the weight.”
John Ryder thinks Canelo can beat Crawford if he cuts off his movement.
Abel Sanchez’s fighter is going into a high stakes fight with Tyson Fury’s top sparring partner
Sanchez’s fighter Filip Hrgovic is facing David Adeleye on August 16th’s Moses Itauma vs Dillian Whyte undercard.
David Adeleye was praised by Tyson Fury for his assistance in helping him prepare to face Whyte back in 2022, as he was one of ‘The Gypsy King’s top sparring partners.
Hrgovic is a huge favorite against Adeleye, who beat Jeamie TKV via controversial stoppage last time out, as he has far bigger wins against names such as Zhilei Zhang and Joe Joyce.
‘El Animal’ has only one loss to Daniel Dubois, whilst Adeleye was stopped by Fabio Wardley in 2023.