Former unified welterweight champion Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis has given his verdict on the upcoming clash between Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford.
‘Bud’ Crawford is due to make his first appearance at 168lbs when he challenges the Mexican icon for his undisputed crown next month, having spent his recent years campaigning at welterweight, where he became undisputed champion, before one fight at super-welterweight last year.
As for Canelo, the 34-year-old from Guadalajara has proved to be the dominant force at 168, defeating the likes of Callum Smith, Billy Joe Saunders, Caleb Plant, Jaime Munguia and Gennady Golovkin since making the move up from middleweight back in 2018.
In an interview with Fight Hub TV, ‘Boots’ Ennis – who had chased a fight with Crawford when they were both at 147 – revealed that he is ‘leaning towards’ Canelo to get the job done due to the size and strength advantage.
“I think you gotta lean more towards Canelo, because like I said before he been putting big guys out and down. And Canelo not even really a 68 pounder, he probably really should be at 60 maybe and he been hurting these guys.
“I think he be dropping these guys and things like that, and them guys been way bigger than him come fight night, I know that for sure. They could be close to 200 pounds and he be dropping them … It’s going to be a great fight. I think Crawford should’ve taken a warm-up fight at 160.”
There have been concerns raised about Crawford making the jump up to super-middleweight, especially with no fight at middleweight in between – something Ennis suggested would have been the right move.
Canelo has fought as high as the light-heavyweight limit twice during his career – defeating Sergey Kovalev back in 2019 but falling short to former undisputed 175lb champion Dmitry Bivol back in 2022.