Chael Sonnen is siding with the underdog in the “Fight of the Century.”
Canelo Alvarez (63-2-2, 39 KOs) puts his undisputed super middleweight title on the line against undefeated Terence Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs) on Saturday at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. Daniel Cormier asked Sonnen if Canelo losing to a smaller Crawford would affect his legacy.
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“Canelo is in a situation where there’s really no room for error,” Sonnen said on “Good Guy/Bad Guy” with Daniel Cormier. “He, at 21 years old, was given an opportunity, and I respected that he took it, but he was in there with a 45-year-old Floyd Mayweather, and he got taken apart. It was 12 rounds. He lost 10 of them, but it was very clear that he lost all 10 of them. Then the story comes out: Well he’s a little bit too young, somewhere in there he had some tainted meat, failed a drug test, and he kind of worked his way through that. The people decided that they love him, and this is not a former world champion, and this is not a former Olympic gold medalist.
“In fact, he didn’t even represent his country at the Olympic games. And I’m not hating on him. He can fight, but he was still chosen. Somebody every era gets chosen to be the face of boxing and gets chosen to be the face of Mexican boxing. He wasn’t the best at his age group, he wasn’t the best in the juniors, the Cadets, any of the divisions, but he did get chosen, and he’s a very good fighter. But ‘Bud’ Crawford is the better fighter, and Canelo is a better boxer, and what do you want to do with that? I’m leaning towards Crawford.”
Although Crawford is jumping up two weight classes to face Canelo, Sonnen rubbishes the claim that size matters.
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“I’m not buying this whole thing that there’s a weight difference – I’m really not,” Sonnen said. “(Oleksandar) Usyk greatly was outweighed by (Tyson) Fury just a moment ago. Mayweather was greatly outweighed by (Conor) McGregor. Jake Paul was greatly outweighed by Mike Tyson. I know some of those are just for fun, but this old idea about size and it’s helpful, historically – it’s simply not true. Muhammad Ali was 198 pounds in his prime. Mike Tyson never had a reach or a weight advantage over one single opponent.”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Canelo vs. Crawford: Why UFC analyst’s pick might surprise you