"Canelo is gone, now I'm the king": How Crawford made a revolution

On the night of September 14, the main boxing match of 2025 took place in the USA. Terence Crawford and Saul "Canelo" Alvarez fought for the title of the absolute champion in the second middleweight division. The victory went to the American — the fight ended with a unanimous judicial decision. And Terence became the champion in the fifth weight category.

The dark Horse Crawford

The American seemed to remain in the shadow of his opponent's greatness, despite his impressive track record. By September 14, Crawford had fought 41 fights in the ring, and he won all of them. Moreover, he did it 31 times by knockout. Moreover, throughout his career, Terence has never shied away from fighting the most dangerous opponents, and for a fight with a Mexican, he even had to gain more than 7 kg in weight: he spent his last fight before today as part of the first middleweight (69.85 kg limit), and in Las Vegas he fought already in the next weight category (the limit is 76.2 kg).

Crawford "ran away" from Canelo

The fight, as expected, lasted all 12 rounds. Terence kept his opponent at a distance all the time, while Canelo unsuccessfully tried to close the distance and negate his opponent's advantage in size: Crawford is 12 cm taller than the Mexican, so his arm span is larger. In those moments, when Saul did get close to his opponent, he successfully blocked - the main part of Canelo's punches on the body fell into the block.

Alvarez's team asked the ward to look for opportunities in quick attacks. It was logical, but it didn't help in the fight against a skilled opponent. On the contrary, Crawford outplayed his opponent precisely due to the speed of movement, which compensated for the lack of power.

As a result, by the fourth round, there was a feeling that the Mexican was tired. But Crawford even managed to mock his opponent a little during the fight, sometimes sticking his tongue out at him and smiling after the opponent's hits. Canelo, in turn, sometimes tried to speed up the pace and achieve results due to one accurate knockout hit, but the famous Mexican obviously lacked sharpness.

Terence spent all 12 rounds as collected as possible and won with a noticeable advantage.: 116:112, 115:113, 115:113.

This is the third defeat for Alvarez. In 2013, he lost to Floyd Mayweather in the first middleweight division by decision of the judges. In 2022, he lost to Dmitry Bivol in the light heavyweight division. And now he gave the victory to Terence Crawford in the second middleweight division.

Despite this, the Mexican's achievements cannot be underestimated — for four years in a row he held the title of absolute world champion in the second middleweight division. Crawford won the belt for the first time in this category, but the fifth overall.

Wins despite beatings and shootouts

Crawford's path to the top of boxing was not the easiest. As a child, his father was constantly not around — the man worked as a sailor. The mother used questionable methods to raise her son — she offered the neighborhood children to beat Terence for money. In addition, the woman had problems with alcohol. His parents were constantly fighting, but the boy did not turn away from either of them.

The American did not use drugs and did not belong to street gangs, but because of family problems he grew short-tempered. Crawford got into shootouts eight times, but, fortunately, he was never injured. A trip to Africa helped to soften the character — in Uganda, Terence fed cancer patients, children, and settled their lives. After that, he went to Rwanda to help the locals survive the consequences of the terrible genocide of 1994. Now the American continues to donate time and money to charity.

Despite two titles of the absolute world champion in different categories, there was little audience interest in Crawford. The American did not receive the same share of fame and money as other boxers. There was no queue of promoters and top boxers.

Moving to another weight class to fight Canelo was a risk. But he was justified: the Mexican was defeated, and Crawford himself can get the privileges he needs. Terence's path to greatness is not hindered by family problems, shootings and threats to life, or a small audience interest. "Canelo is gone. Now I am the face of boxing," the American said after the fight.