The aftermath of Terence Crawford-Saul “Canelo” Alvarez left us with one enduring quote. Everybody knew Crawford’s victory was significant, but just how much did it enhance his legacy? Could the audacity and mastery he showed even elevate him above Floyd Mayweather Jnr – who had also defeated Alvarez – historically?
Asked to compare his fights with the two men, Alvarez was blunt. “I think Crawford is way better than Floyd Mayweather,” he said.
Coming from the only man to have fought both Crawford and Mayweather, those words can go a long way and have ignited debates in the week since Crawford defeated Canelo. On the other hand, while the physical fights end with the final bell, psychological wars are waged well before and afterwards. Alvarez may have been caught up in Crawford’s mastery, but maybe he also wanted to take a shot at Mayweather.
“It’s probably too close to the fight [to read into Canelo’s comment],” Stephen “Breadman” Edwards told BoxingScene. “Fighters are emotional, and sometimes they say self-serving things. Maybe Canelo’s trying to get Floyd back for saying certain things about him. You never know.
“Sometimes you just have to be careful with anything that a fighter says, because sometimes it can be self-serving. Sometimes it can be emotions after the fight. [Canelo] may, deep down inside, not think as highly of Floyd as a person.
“It’s a lot of things with fighters. Sometimes I’ll hear fighters say the best fighter that they’ve ever faced, and they’ll come up with somebody, and you know that person’s not the best fighter that they’ve faced, but you’ve gotta kind of respect it. ‘Okay, whatever.’ You hear it all the time. Most fighters say off-the-wall stuff.”
One such instance: during the build-up to Crawford-Canelo, Alvarez took shots at Crawford’s resume. “If you look at his career, mention one elite fighter,” Alvarez said during a bizarre discussion including Crawford, Tom Brady, and Shaquille O’ Neal.
“So [Viktor] Postol wasn’t elite?” Crawford retorted, referring to the Ukrainian against whom Crawford unified two 140lbs titles in 2016. “Ricky Burns wasn’t elite?”
Crawford could have named Errol Spence or Shawn Porter, both far better-known and respected fighters he knocked out at welterweight. Why he did not is anybody’s guess.
“You can’t challenge their opinion because it’s opinion, it’s subjective,” Edwards said. “It is what it is. I think Spence is better than Postol, but if that’s what Crawford says, how we gonna argue with him? He’s the one that been in the ring, he beat both guys! If anybody has the most credibility, it would be him.”
Breadman, for this reason, doesn’t put much stock into Alvarez’s comment.
“I don’t know how Canelo feels about Floyd deep down inside,” he said. “He might be taking a jab at Floyd. You never know how that works.”
