Not only is the fight massively significant because of the title implications but it is also the inaugural event hosted by TKO boxing<\/a>, with UFC<\/a> boss Dana White<\/a> promoting his first big boxing event.<\/p>\n With Crawford moving up several weight classes to take on the Mexican champion, he is heading into the clash as the underdog, despite being regarded as the best pound-for-pound fighter by Floyd Mayweather<\/a>.<\/p>\n Over the last few years, the UFC has caught up with boxing in terms of popularity, and the MMA powerhouse recently signed a huge $7.7 billion deal with Paramount<\/a> as their new broadcasting partner, showcasing their power in sport.<\/p>\n The UFC\u2019s biggest star heading into their new era is undoubtedly current lightweight champion Ilia Topuria<\/a>, who continues to transcend the sport.<\/p>\n And not only is \u2018El Matador\u2019 widely regarded as the sport\u2019s biggest current star, he is also widely recognized as the best boxer in UFC history, with a large portion of the fanbase under the belief that he could have a lot of success in the sport of boxing.<\/p>\n However, ahead of his clash against Canelo, Crawford has snubbed the Spaniard when giving his extremely shock pick for the best boxer in the UFC.<\/p>\n \u201cMy guy, what\u2019s his name Cody (Garbrandt), he\u2019s the best UFC boxer,\u201d Crawford told Full Send.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, (I\u2019ve seen Topuria) but I don\u2019t know man, Cody has got them hands. I\u2019m saying when we\u2019re talking about straight boxing, we ain\u2019t talking about nothing else, we\u2019re talking about straight boxing skills, I just think Cody has got the best boxing skills in the UFC,\u201d Crawford continued.<\/p>\n What happened to Cody Garbrandt in the UFC?<\/p>\n Although Crawford\u2019s pick comes as a huge shock, Cody Garbrandt<\/a> was once regarded as the next big star in the UFC, and White even tipped him to be the next Conor McGregor<\/a>.<\/p>\n Despite that, after losing his UFC bantamweight title in 2017, \u2018No Love\u2019s\u2019 career rapidly went downhill and he has struggled to bounce back ever since.<\/p>\n The 34-year-old has lost his last two fights in the Octagon, and it is unclear if and when he will return to action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ilia Topuria is widely regarded as the best boxer in the UFC but boxing world champion Terence Crawford…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,66675,3262,82,13036,640],"class_list":["post-119747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cody-garbrandt","tag-ilia-topuria","tag-sports","tag-terence-crawford","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Terence](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GettyImages-2222535518-1024x647.jpg\")
Photo by Steve Marcus\/Getty ImagesCrawford snubs Ilia Topuria when naming the best boxer in the UFC<\/p>\n