Canelo Alvarez vs. Terence Crawford would be a mega-fight, but does it make sense?

LAS VEGAS — It’s almost getting greedy to ask — beg, perhaps — for Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford to fight each other after boxing’s already had such a great year.

On Friday, the happy news broke that Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk had signed contracts to fight for the undisputed heavyweight championship in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, either on Dec. 23 or in January. That’s not yet determined, but it’s happening because both men put pen to paper.

There have been a slew of great fights in boxing this year, but unfortunately, one of them was not the one we saw in the ring at T-Mobile Arena on Saturday. It was a brilliant matchup when it was signed, pitting Alvarez, the undisputed super middleweight champion, against Jermell Charlo, the undisputed super welterweight champion.

In the ring, though, it was a giant bore. Charlo looked like he just showed up for a paycheck. He fought with no passion, no fire. He didn’t look like he was determined to win. He looked compliant, accepting of his role as the guy who was supposed to lose.

And lose he did, in a big way. Judges Max DeLuca and David Sutherland had it 118-109 and Steve Weisfeld had it 119-108 for Alvarez. Yahoo Sports had it 119-108 for Alvarez, as well. All three judges gave Charlo the ninth. DeLuca and Sutherland gave him the fifth, too, and that was it.

Charlo is a quality fighter, and until he faced Alvarez he’d beaten every man he had fought. He avenged a loss to Tony Harrison by winning the rematch by decision. He drew with Brian Castaño in their first fight but knocked out Castaño in their rematch to become undisputed champion.

That got him the fight with Alvarez. He was jumping two weight classes to face Alvarez, though that didn’t seem to be a factor. But he never showed any fire, not even during fight week when he had the ability to do a bit of trash talking and perhaps get Canelo of his game.

He didn’t and Alvarez cruised to a wide decision victory.

The question, of course, is where Alvarez goes after this. There is no logical next opponent. The WBC ordered him to fight David Benavidez, and that fight has potential, though it wouldn’t sell at the box office like a fight with Crawford would.

Charlo said he wanted to defend his titles against Crawford next, but on X, Crawford was unequivocal in saying he wasn’t interested.

That fight wouldn’t do much business, either. Now, a Crawford-Alvarez fight would, but is that the right fight with Crawford at 147, Canelo at 168 and Charlo admitting the size gulf was a factor in his performance?

After Alvarez’s win Saturday, Stephen Espinoza, the president of Showtime Sports, didn’t dismiss an Alvarez-Crawford fight. But nor was he cheerleading it, particularly not next.

“If anyone had proposed a Canelo versus Crawford fight six months ago, they would have been laughed out of the room,” he told Yahoo Sports. “It was only because of that singular performance [against Errol Spence] on July 29 that this is even a conversation. It was that scintillating of a performance, and given that, I don’t think it’s a ridiculous conversation to have. There are weight classes for a reason, and I think it’s a big challenge.”

It would be arguably the two greatest fighters in the world going head-to-head. That is why there was so much interest in seeing Floyd Mayweather fight Manny Pacquiao. They clearly were the two best in the world, but for more than five years, they were running in parallel.

It set the single-bout pay-per-view record when that fight was finally made in 2015.

Now, at this stage, neither Alvarez nor Crawford is held in the same esteem that Mayweather and Pacquiao were held in from 2009 until they met in 2015, but both are superstars and both are among the greatest fighters who ever lived.

Not long after Crawford routed Spence, Alvarez fielded questions about facing Crawford. He seemed put off that the topic was being broached. Alvarez is a proud guy who is always looking to advance his career, and he couldn’t see how fighting a guy three classes below him made sense.

“Canelo’s initial gut reaction was, ‘Why would I do that?'” Espinoza said. “I think he realized people would say he was beating up on a little guy. So he was in a no-win situation.”

Alvarez wasn’t in much of a mood to discuss Crawford at Saturday’s post-fight news conference either. He was happy to regain his mojo against Charlo and put on a dominant performance, reminiscent of his younger self.

He’s usually a fighter who seeks out the best challenges, but he wasn’t giving much thought to a Crawford bout Saturday.

“You know, I always say that if a fight makes sense, why not?” Alvarez said. “… Like I said, maybe, but I don’t really know. Right now, I’m just going to enjoy this fight and, please, just let me enjoy this fight.”

Alvarez lost to Dmitry Bivol and defeated longtime rival Gennadiy Golovkin in 2022, but hurt his hand in the Golovkin fight and had surgery. He came back in May with an uneven win over John Ryder that he wasn’t happy with.

He was, though, thrilled with what he did Saturday.

“I think this is Canelo,” he said. “I’m back. Finally, I’m back and I feel confident right now. I feel great and I’m so happy because I didn’t feel like this for a long time. But now I’m back.”

Crawford arrived on the big stage in July after dominating and stopping the previously unbeaten and highly regarded Spence in the ninth round. Alvarez has been around a long time and reaffirmed his position among the greats Saturday by dominating Charlo.

Whether these two legends will ever meet remains up in the air.

But as long as they keep winning, it’s also a question that won’t go away, despite the gulf in weight between them.