Tim Bradley on Canelo: “Don’t run away from Crawford!”

Tim Bradley got on his soapbox this week to pressure Canelo Alvarez to give Terence Crawford the fight he’s been asking for.

This is the fight Crawford, 37, desperately wants, but has eluded him due to his unwillingness to earn it through hard work defeating the top dogs at 168 and 175.

Golden parachutes

Bradley urges unified super middleweight champion Canelo (62-2-2, 39 KOs) not to “run away” from a fight against Crawford. This fight does nothing for Canelo. It’s seen as a vehicle for Crawford to get the golden parachute that will give him a soft landing into retirement and allow him to comfortably live out his golden years in a giant mansion in Beverly Hills.

Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs) looked awful in his last fight against 154-pound champion Israil Madrimov on Aug. 3 and showed that he has reached the limit of how far he can go to get through divisions Terence was eating right hands all night from Madrimov and he looked like an old man in that fight. Why might Canelo want to fight Crawford after this performance?

“Canelo, don’t run away from this. You already ran away from the Benavidez fight,” Tim Bradley said in his YouTube channel, talking about his desire for Canelo Alvarez to fight Terence Crawford. “Anyway, you don’t care what people say about you because you didn’t fight.

“You’re walking around Mexico and you obviously don’t care what people think about you not fighting. Get the fight with Crawford. This is a fight that everybody wants to see, and it’s going to give Crawford a chance to show you and show the world his greatness,” Bradley continued.

“Everyone talks about weight. ‘Oh, he’s going to knock him out.’ When was the last time Canelo knocked someone out? You can all give up on this: “He’s going to knock out Crawford.” Canelo is the same height as Crawford (5’8″). Canelo started at 147 pounds. He’s not a natural at 168 pounds,” Bradley said.

Canelo is much bigger, stronger and more talented than Crawford. Fans watched the 37-year-old Terence narrowly beat Israil Madrimov in his debut at 154 last August, and rightly see the Nebraska native as too small and old to move up 14 pounds to 168 for challenge Canelo for their unified titles. .

Test field

If Crawford was willing to prove himself by moving up to 168 and running the gauntlet David Benavidez, David Morrell, Artur Beterbiev and Christian Mbilli, fans wouldn’t be opposed to this fight happening. But since Crawford isn’t willing to do that, he doesn’t value a fight against King Canelo. He is ignored like other needy fighters who ask Alvarez to give them an undeserved fight.

To meet the King, you have to do something cool. It’s always been that way. Crawford is trying to skip that part and just ask for the fight or have others try to pressure Canelo on his behalf.

“We just saw a fighter (Oleksandr Usyk) who was 50 pounds lighter than the other guy (Tyson Fury) that he was facing and he beat him. He beat him with his skill, skill, heart and determination. Usyk he’s a great fighter. You know who else is great is Crawford,” Bradley said.

The difference is that the 36-year-old Tyson Fury is completely washed up in the clinical sense, always overrated and manufactured, thanks to the careful combination made by his promoters.

Canelo is no hype job and has real talent to go along with his power and size. More importantly, it’s a proven PPV draw. Crawford is not a PPV draw and never will be. This fight is just to help Crawford financially and make his fans, like Bradley, happy.

This fight does nothing for Canelo. If Bradley really cared, he would position Crawford to face the killers in the 154-pound division, which includes many he still needs to fight. Bakhram Muratazaliev is waiting for Crawford, and if he wants to cement his legacy, he needs to fight him.