TRUE GRIT
that fight, that Manny was going to win and embarrass Oscar. I said it. People may not have believed me, but I said it leading up to the fight. When they had the press conference after the fight, I said the press said it would be a mismatch, and it was a mismatch – making a joke of it. But again, Manny had so many advantages over Oscar at that point in Oscar’s career; the fact that Oscar was bigger was the only thing Oscar had going for him.” De La Hoya retired following his lopsided loss to Pacquiao. He
contemplated coming back numerous times, though he never went through with those fights. Arum doesn’t believe Crawford – whom his company, Top Rank Inc., also promoted for most of his career – will have nearly as easy a time with Alvarez as Pacquiao did with De La Hoya. The 93-year-old Hall of Fame promoter does, however, believe Crawford has
a legitimate opportunity to upset the Mexican legend when they meet sometime in September. “That fight is much more competitive than people would think,” Arum said. “Canelo is the bigger man, but… Crawford has this one real thing that nobody Canelo has fought has, and that’s that he is totally ambidextrous. He can throw a lot of fighters off doing
that, because fighters like to prepare in training for either a righty or a lefty. And if the fighter is truly ambidextrous and switches without problems in the middle of a fight, he creates tremendous problems for the opponent. And I don’t know that Canelo has ever dealt with that kind of puzzle. The only reason why I think it may not be that much of a problem for Canelo is Terence is also a fighter with a little age on him. And he’s even been less active than Canelo, and that hurts.” Crawford, unlike Pacquiao when he battled De La Hoya, is actually older than Alvarez by 3½ years. If their 12-round, 168-pound title fight takes place September 13, as Crawford and others have indicated, the former undisputed welterweight champ will be 15 days short of his 38th birthday. Alvarez, who would be 35 at that point, will first have to get through a tune-up match on May 3. His probable opponent, according to what sources have told The Ring, will be Cuban-born William Scull (23-0, 9 KOs), who won the IBF super middleweight title Alvarez vacated last year by beating Russia’s Vladimir Shishkin unanimously on points in October. Alvarez, who is commonly considered boxing’s undisputed super middleweight champion, already owns the Ring, WBA, WBC and WBO 168-pound titles. He ultimately embraced the idea of facing Crawford, which is generally regarded as a high- risk, low-reward proposition in terms of legacy, because he will likely be paid a purse of at least $100 million as part of a three-fight deal with Riyadh Season. Crawford holds the WBA junior middleweight title. The former Ring/ WBO lightweight and undisputed junior welterweight champion is ranked No. 3
Many feared that De La Hoya would seriously hurt Pacquiao. Are critics of the Canelo- Crawford clash making the same mistake?
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