The rumored fight between Terence Crawford and former middleweight champion Gennadiy Golovkin is not happening.
His Excellency Turki Alalshikh has reportedly denied that he’s planning on putting together a fight between the inactive 42-year-old Golovkin and WBA junior middleweight champion Crawford.
The fight would be a no-win situation for Crawford, where he wouldn’t receive credit if he were victorious, and if he were beaten or struggled, he’d be criticized by fans.
It would have been interesting for fans to see how well Crawford held up against a big puncher like Golovkin, who would be putting their hands on him.
Crawford’s last opponent, ‘Little GGG’ Israil Madrimov, only sporadically threw punches, but the ones he did throw affected the Nebraska native. He looked very beatable, squeaking by with a narrow decision.
Golovkin would have been a more dangerous threat to Crawford, who isn’t designed to fight above 147 at the elite level and would be out of his depth at 160 and above.
Crawford Focused on Canelo
Turki doesn’t say whether he wanted to put the fight together, as he recently commented about Crawford only wanting a fight against Canelo Alvarez. If that’s the only fight Crawford wants, he wouldn’t accept a smaller one with risk against Golovkin.
It remains to be seen if Turki can produce the Canelo fight for Crawford, who turns 37 on September 28th. He doesn’t have much time left in his career and will need to get the Canelo fight soon.
Crawford will sit and wait for as long as it takes to find out if His Excellency can negotiate a mega-fight against the Mexican superstar Canelo, who told him that he didn’t want to discuss another fight until he got through his title defense against Edgar Berlanga on September 14th.
If Turki can’t put that fight together, Crawford could choose to retire from the sport. He would risk his unbeaten record and legacy if he continued fighting at 154 against the younger fighters, who hit hard and would pressure him much more than his last opponent, Israil Madrimov.