Oscar De La Hoya has spoken out once again ahead of the upcoming ‘mega-fight’ between Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford.
The pound-for-pound greats are gearing up for their highly-anticipated showdown which takes place on Saturday September 13 at the Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Canelo is set to make the first defence of his undisputed super-middleweight world championship, just months after he achieved this feat for the second time in his career with a comprehensive points victory over Cuba’s William Scull in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Crawford will make his first appearance at 168lbs when he faces the Mexican icon, having spent almost the entirety of his professional career campaigning at welterweight, although he did make a brief outing at 154lbs last August when he dethroned former WBA world champion Israil Madrimov.
Speaking on Ring Champs with Ak & Barak, legendary fighter-turned-promoter De La Hoya was asked if he believes ‘Bud’ has a legitimate chance at defeating Canelo in September.
“That’s the million dollar question [if Crawford as a chance] because I’m a historian, I love boxing, I love watching it, I love studying it, I know it inside out. When I watched Terence Crawford get rattled and rocked by Yuriorkis Gamboa, who’s a natural 30 pounder? That to me is going to be a huge problem when he gets hit by Canelo, who’s a natural what super-middleweight maybe? But you know what he fought at 175? So he fights at 175, he’s fighting these big monsters, he’s not getting rattled at all, Berlanga’s a big kid so it makes me think I mean how is Crawford gonna keep him away for 12 rounds? Canelo’s gonna come at him hard.
But then again I think about Crawford’s abilities and his IQ and his footwork which Canelo cannot handle and we know that for a fact.
In this game power means a lot.”
There have been concerns over Crawford making such a big jump up in weight, but the unbeaten 37-year-old could write his name into the boxing history books should he be victorious by becoming the first ever fighter to win an undisputed championship in several weight divisions.