Canelo Alvarez has laid out his terms for a potential fight against Terence Crawford.
A shock fight between Canelo and Crawford has been discussed over the past year, but has already faced many hurdles before even reaching the negotiations stage.
Crawford stepped up to 154lbs in August to defeat Israil Madrimov for the WBA super-welterweight title, but he still remains two weight divisions and 14lbs below Canelo.
The main catalyst behind the bout happening is Saudi Arabia Chairman of the General Entertainment Authority Turki Al-Sheikh, who made it clear he wanted to stage the contest.
Canelo revealed that he was unwilling to discuss the fight before the conclusion of his bout against Edgar Berlanga in September, which the Mexican star went on to win by unanimous decision to retain his unified super-middleweight titles.
That has meant the potential match-up was put on the back burner, but Al-Sheikh has begun to speak about it again, suggesting that it could be back on the agenda for some point in 2025.
One new stumbling block may have emerged though, as Canelo has revealed to Fight Hub TV that Crawford must fight one man in particular first before he would consider the showdown.
“Crawford needs to fight Teofimo [Lopez] first and then we’ll see. At the end of the day, I’ve said before, I’m not asking for that fight, they want to make that fight because it’s a payday obviously, I don’t want that fight, I think Teofimo deserves it more than me.”
Teofimo Lopez is the current WBO super-lightweight champion, and has been involved in a war of words with Crawford in recent months. Whether or not Crawford goes up against either Canelo or Lopez in the next year remains to be seen.
