LAS VEGAS – There’s not only a momentous weight divide for Terence Crawford to bridge in Saturday night’s undisputed super-middleweight showdown against fellow four-division champion Canelo Alvarez.
Judging by the reception at Tuesday’s grand arrivals, he’ll also have the weight of confronting a sizable disadvantage in supporters.
In typical Crawford style, he was asked what the propensity of boos that greeted him inside the Fontainebleau meant to him.
“It’s cool,” he answered, elaborating later, “I don’t come to Vegas to have fun.”
Crawford, 37, was made for this.
Ornery by nature, he’s never had any trouble leaning into any perceived slight to push him toward victory and Tuesday’s showering of jeers certainly will fuel him.
Perhaps no one knows the Nebraska fighter better than his 2023 trainer of the year Brian “BoMac” McIntyre, who absorbed the scene and assessed it this way:
“I’m very confident. I’m confident we’re going to get the job done,” McIntyre told BoxingScene.
It was McIntyre two years ago who told a legendary tale of Crawford 41-0 (31 KOs) stopping a training session to impassionately declare he was going to ”fuck up” then-three-division champion Errol Spence Jnr, a vow he made good on and more by effectively sending the Texan to retirement.
Now, as he’s taken 13 months off since winning the WBA 154lbs belt against Israil Madrimov to bulk up and prepare his body for the ultimate test of Mexico’s Alvarez 63-2-2 (39 KOs) in a bout to be streamed by Netflix from the Las Vegas Raiders’ home, Allegiant Stadium, he’s inspired to crash the Mexican Independence weekend party for Alvarez.
“I feel it more because Canelo has more clout than Spence, so I’m ready to celebrate our great win,” McIntyre said.
Alvarez did all he could to infuse the masses with words that will drive their support through Saturday, calling it the biggest fight he’s ever participated in, roaring, “Viva Mexico!” and expressing his interest in producing another holiday weekend triumph.
His ability to assert his size advantage will be watched closely along with his interest in boxing more effectively than he did in a lackluster May showing in Saudi Arabia versus William Scull.
“We’re going to see what [Alvarez] brings to the table. We know what we want to do. We’ll see what he does and we’ll stall it,” McIntyre said.
As McIntyre knows, his me-against-the-world champion fighter carries inside him a prove-you-all-wrong chip that has separated him from all of the others he’s met inside the ring.
“He’s definitely got that dog in him,” McIntyre said. “It’s not coached.
“You’re born with that.”
Lance Pugmire is BoxingScene’s senior U.S. writer and an assistant producer for ProBox TV. Pugmire has covered boxing since the early 2000s, first at the Los Angeles Times and then at The Athletic and USA Today. He won the Boxing Writers’ Association of America’s Nat Fleischer Award in 2022 for career excellence.
