A high-profile clash between Terence Crawford and Gennadiy Golovkin fell apart before it began recently but may still have some legs with fans.
World Boxing News reported that Turki Alalshikh had denied rumors of a Crawford vs. Golovkin offer to both fighters for a Riyadh Season battle. Alahshikh responded via social media to terminate suggestions of the collision before they grew another head.
However, WBN’s article on the fight ended up being the most visited story of the week and is still attracting interest. Therefore, Alalshikh may have been a little too hasty in ending any notion of Crawford vs Golovkin.
Despite a ‘backlash’ against the fight and statements that ‘Golovkin is too big’ or ‘too old’ to face Crawford, there seems to be genuine wonderment. It’s possibly the car crash syndrome where you can’t help but watch even though it’s a disaster, but still, after Riyadh Season’s United States debut flopped, Alalshikh could do with a fight that will captivate more than a few thousand people on Pay Per View.
Golovkin has been out of action for two years since losing to Canelo Alvarez for the second time in their third meeting. The Kazakh puncher also didn’t look good and was soundly beaten despite two previously razor-thin decisions against the Mexican superstar.
Regarding Crawford vs. Golovkin, all that seems to be holding up taking the next step is whether the weight negates the age gap.
Crawford certainly needs a former pound-for-pound king or someone of that stature to cement his legacy. Granted, ‘GGG’ is probably not that guy, but in a time when there are slim pickings, ‘Bud’ could probably do much worse.
Canelo won’t come to the table, and Floyd Mayweather is long gone, leaving only Golovkin or Manny Pacquiao with legendary and semi-active status. If Pacquiao can defeat Mario Barrios later this year in his comeback and claims Crawford’s old WBC welterweight title, then there’s that option for 2025. But for now, the WBN P4P Top 50 has nobody around Crawford’s weight until you get to Jermell Charlo in the 20s.
Jermell is unlikely to hold interest in facing Crawford after landing the Canelo fight in 2023 and taking the expected hiatus after hitting the jackpot. After that, you’d have to lean away from a top name towards gaining a title at another weight.
The winner of Erislandy Lara vs Danny Garcia or moving back down for Jaron Ennis would be the only other fights to make sense.
Read all articles and exclusive interviews by Phil Jay. Learn more about the author, experienced boxing writer, and World Boxing News Editor since 2010. Follow on Twitter @PhilJWBN.
