The Weight Difference Will Be Too Much: Fernando Vargas Jr. Predicts A Knockout Victory For Canelo Alvarez Over Terence Crawford

Fernando Vargas Jr. predicts a knockout victory for Canelo Alvarez over Terence Crawford. The junior middleweight prospect Vargas Jr. says “The weight” is going to be too much for Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs), with him going up from 147 to 168 to challenge Canelo (63-2-2, 39 KOs) for his undisputed super middleweight championship on September 13 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

The Weight Difference Factor

Crawford, 37, is technically moving up from 154, but he’d only been in that division for one fight a year ago. He didn’t look golden in that fight against Israil Madrimov. It was a close enough contest to warrant a rematch. Despite the razor-close performance from Crawford, Turki Alalshikh still went ahead and set up the superfight for him against Canelo two divisions up to 168. There won’t be a catchweight or rehydration limit handicap for Terence to help him.

“Crawford is strong. You know one of those skinny, strong dudes? I sparred him, and I just thought I was able to move him a little bit,” said junior middleweight prospect Fernando Vargas Jr. to Shawn Porter’s YouTube channel, talking about the Canelo vs. Crawford fantasy fight. “I just feel he could get Canelo frustrated. You’ve seen Canelo pick people up and just get frustrated.”

The incident involving Canelo picking up an opponent out of frustration during his career came in the 11th round of his clash against WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol on May 7, 2022. Bivol had thrown a punch and fell forward onto the back of Canelo, who was stooping low to avoid the shot. Canelo then straightened up to remove Bivol from his back. It appeared to be an annoyance on Alvarez’s part from having Bivol lie on top of him with all his weight.

“I think it’s going to be a tough fight, but I feel, Canelo, he should stop him in the 10th or 11th round. That’s my opinion. The weight. It’s almost like three weight classes?” said Vargas Jr. about Crawford essentially moving up from 147 to 168. “He [Terence] doesn’t want to lose at anything at all. He’s a competitor. I think Canelo [wins]. You don’t think he’s going to hit him [Crawford] in the arm?”

Where Canelo could stop Crawford is if the Nebraska native chooses to brawl at some point in the fight, looking to impress the large crowd at the Allegiant Stadium or Turki Alalshikh. In Crawford’s last fight against Israil Madrimov, he frequently traded with him and took some massive shots. He had to because he was getting outboxed by Madrimov through much of the first half of the fight. There’s a lot of pressure on Crawford not to play it safe, given that Turki has mandated that he won’t support “Tom and Jerry” fights on during his events. That means he wants action. If Crawford chooses to ignore that directive, he could displease Turki, and he’s paying him a lot of money.

Porter’s Super One-sided Prediction

“Both of these guys are looking at someone they can’t make a mistake against,” said Shawn Porter on his Porterway Podcast about Crawford and Canelo. “I don’t think this fight is going to go back and forth. I think it’s going to go one way or the other. Super one-sided. The one that has the ability to make adjustments is Crawford. We’ve never seen Canelo do anything else. Bud has the ability to change some things to go the other way,” said Porter.

Porter’s prediction of a “super one-sided” fight on September 13th means he believes Crawford will dominate Canelo, as he’s mentioned in several other interviews that he’s picking Terence to win.

For Crawford to defeat Canelo in a one-sided fashion means he’s likely going to outbox him, because he didn’t show the power or ability to do that in his last fight, moving up from 147 to 154 to face WBA junior middleweight champion Israil Madrimov a year ago on August 3, 2024. The power wasn’t there for Crawford to overwhelm Madrimov the way he’d done at welterweight against Porter, Errol Spence, David Avanesyan, and other fighters.