The Boxing Truth®: Alvarez-Crawford: A Long Overdue Win For Boxing

All too often, the phrase “The Biggest Fight of the Year" is an overused cliche. It is a good sales hook and a way to draw interest in a Boxing match, but also in other combat disciplines as well including the sport of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). As effective as the phrase is as a promotional tool, whether the fight in question deserves such a label attached to it or not, if the fight doesn't deliver when all the promotion, hype, press obligations, and weigh-ins have run their course, once two fighters get into the ring, it can and often does leave a feeling of dissatisfaction and a bad taste in the mouths of Boxing fans, even when such an occasion has been made consumer-friendly by removing the expensive price tag that often accompanies such events.

There are times, however, when the aforementioned hype tactics, promotion,and general anticipation results in a great fight that serves as a way to elevate Boxing as a whole. The once fantasy matchup,turned legitimate “SuperFight" between Undisputed Super-Middleweight world champion Saul “Canelo" Alvarez and undefeated former four-division world champion Terence Crawford proved to be such an occasion. A fight that was simply about two future Hall of Famers, who are legitimately among the best fighters in the world competing against each other and not one that was surrounded by personal animosity or “Bad Blood," whether legitimate or manufactured as a promotional tool to draw interest in the encounter.

This was simply about two of the best fighters of their era showing why they are held in such regard. As often happens prior to great fights, there was also the element of the unknown. Crawford, who had held world titles ranging from the 135lb. Lightweight division to the 154lb. Jr. Middleweight division, becoming an undisputed world champion in both the Jr. Welterweight and Welterweight divisions, was moving up fourteen pounds, bypassing the 160lb. Middleweight division,to challenge the long-reigning Super-Middleweight king at 168lbs. Despite the illogical scenario, Crawford had proven long before this challenge to be a generational fighter and the significant jump in weight did not intimidate him, nor did facing a fighter in Alvarez, who like himself had proven to be a generational fighter.

What also added intrigue to this was the perception that, despite his long reign atop the Super-Middleweight division, to some, Alvarez had shown signs of decline in recent fights. Not surprisingly given each fighter’s skillset, what took place at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, NV on September 13th was a tactical Boxing chess match at the highest possible level.

A tactical battle between two tacticians where there was not much to separate the two in the early rounds. Crawford generally being the fighter getting his punches off first, Alvarez looking to apply consistent pressure and focusing his offense on Crawford's body. With both fighters having periods of success in several rounds, it was difficult to discern who had an edge.

Over time, however, there began to be subtle separation, despite applying consistent pressure from the outside, at no sustainable point, was Alvarez able to successfully trap Crawford and nullify his movement. This in addition to being consistently beaten to the punch and outworked gave Crawford an edge in what remained a competitive fight round by round for the full duration of the twelve round world championship bout. It was also noticeable that whenever Alvarez landed solidly either to the body or head, Crawford would immediately return offense to such degree that it would effectively steal those moments from the champion and likely change what were close rounds that might have been swaying in Alvarez’ direction, the opposite way.

At the conclusion of nine rounds, I had Crawford up five rounds to four. Despite the perceptions of some going in that Alvarez may have been on the decline, it was not so much an issue of decline in a fighter as Alvarez performed well throughout the fight and remained competitive, as it was him coming up against a fighter in Terence Crawford that much like Floyd Mayweather and Dmitry Bivol, the only two fighters to had scored victories over him prior to this fight, is a master boxer with no visible flaws that opponents have been able to take advantage of. The same would be true for Alvarez as he, though competitive and having his moments throughout the fight, was simply unable to solve the puzzle Terence Crawford presented, in losing a close, but unanimous decision.

The official scorecards of 116-112 (Eight rounds to four), and 115-113 (Seven rounds to five) on the remaining two cards was not surprising. Round by round it proved to be competitive and a healthy debate is likely to occur when you consider individual rounds as to who had the upper hand amongst fans and experts.

At the end of the twelve round world championship bout I arrived with an eight rounds to four scorecard or 116-112 in points in favor of Crawford. From this observer’s perspective, Crawford not only dictated how the fight was fought, but he was able to sustain that pace throughout. Even as successful as Alvarez was in spots periodically throughout the fight, whatever he was able to do, Crawford had an immediate answer for and this in addition to his being able to outwork Alvarez is what I based my score on.

The victory for Terence Crawford was not only a vindication for him in the sense of seemingly being denied opportunities to face the fellow stars of his era either for business reasons or for other aspects having to do with the politics of Boxing, but it was also a historic one making him the first fighter in Boxing history to become an undisputed world champion in three separate weight divisions.

From a business perspective, the Alvarez-Crawford bout proved to be a massive success drawing over 70,000 spectators to Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas as well as over forty-one million viewers on digital subscription streaming entertainment network Netflix, which should provide further evidence that Boxing has a bright future away from the outdated model of pay-per-view and those types of numbers should convince the holdouts that remain that the time has come to change course and embrace subscription-based streaming with open arms. Alvarez-Crawford truly delivered on being the biggest fight of 2025 and for a sport that will unfortunately always have its flaws and criticisms, it was a long overdue win for the sport. How the sport reacts to that win and how those in it both who were involved in the promotion of this fight and outside of it look to build off of it, remains to be seen.

“And That's The Boxing Truth."

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