Andre Ward: Terence Crawford’s jump to super middleweight for Canelo Alvarez fight will be to his advantage

0 143 5 minutes read

Andre Ward: Terence Crawford’s jump to super middleweight for Canelo Alvarez fight will be to his advantage

WBA super welterweight champion Terence Crawford will jump up 14 pounds to challenge Saul “Canelo” Alvarez for his undisputed super middleweight crown on Saturday night at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

Many observers expect the size to make all the difference in the fight, citing the old adage, “A good big ‘un beats a good little ‘un.” But Hall of Fame boxer Andre Ward believes that the move to 168 pounds will come at an advantage to Crawford.

“I think [moving up to super middleweight is] gonna favor Terence Crawford [because] he’s not having to boil down 25-20 [pounds],” Ward told Uncrowned’s “The Ariel Helwani Show” on Tuesday. “It’s probably going to be about 10-12 [pounds].

“I think the initial conversation was warranted,” said Ward, who will be a part of the Canelo-Crawford Netflix broadcast. “He’s really moving up three weight classes, since his last fight at 147 [pounds] with Errol Spence, roughly about two years ago. It’s really a three-weight-class jump. I think what people have to understand — and I had to understand this when I moved up to face Sergey Kovalev — I went and consulted with Mackie Shilstone. I kept using the phrase, ‘I’m moving up in weight. I got to get my body ready to move up in weight.’

“He said, ‘Have you seen the scale lately? Have you looked at your body scan?’ I think at that time I was maybe 185, 188 [pounds]. He said, ‘You’re not moving up in weight. You’re just cutting less.’ That was transformative for me because I looked, and I was like, ‘Man, you’re right.’ Technically, I’m moving up a weight class, but I’m really not moving up in weight, I’m just not having to boil myself down.”

Rumors have swirled on social media about Crawford’s apparent bulk for his fight with Alvarez. When the pair came face-to-face for a series of launch press conferences in June, the size difference between them was almost non-existent.

The pound-for-pound star recorded himself weighing 186 pounds in February. Despite moving up two weight classes, the four-weight world champion will still need to cut around 18 pounds from that point for Saturday’s Netflix headliner.

Crawford’s latest appearance in a boxing ring was against Israil Madrimov in Los Angeles, back in August 2024. California weighs fighters on fight day to monitor weight gain and combat unhealthy weight cuts. “Bud” weighed in at 169.8 pounds on the day of his fight with Madrimov, showing that he’s no stranger to fighting above the super middleweight limit.

“I think that Terence is going to be a lot stronger, and he’s going to have better endurance not [having] to boil himself down like that,” Ward told Uncrowned. “Even though it is a huge jump, I think we lose sight of the fact of how much he had to boil down and how gaunt he looked at 140 [pounds] and even quickly at 147 [pounds]. It got to the point where you start to cut the muscle mass.

“If you know anything about weight class, at a certain point, that affects you in a boxing ring. Boxing, maybe wrestling, and MMA are the only sports where you have to tear yourself down for two months or three months. Not just the training, but the weight loss. Then you have less than or right around 24 hours to put it back on, and then you need to go be great the next night. Everybody else gets to play or compete at their walking-around weight or their playing weight.”

Alvarez has gone the 12-round distance in his last seven fights, with some underwhelming performances among them. The consensus is that the former pound-for-pound boxer is now past his prime. But still, he is on a six-fight winning streak since losing to Dmitry Bivol in 2022. Crawford, on the other hand, recorded his best performance just two fights ago and has shown no sign of decline.

Alvarez’s bout with Scull this past May in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was historically dreadful. The duo combined to throw the fewest punches in a 12-round fight in the 40-year history of boxing stat-tracker CompuBox. Although most of the blame can be placed on Scull’s refusal to engage, part of the criticism was rightly put on Alvarez’s shoulders for his inability to close the distance with regularity, as well as his unwillingness to force the pace of the bout.

Ward, however, believes that Alvarez’s efforts in the Scull fight were intentionally reserved.

“I think Father Time is catching up to Canelo, but it’s subtle,” Ward said. “A little less punch output than normal. Maybe the reflexes have waned just a little, but he’s still better than most fighters in the world today. I don’t think the Scull fight was a matter of age. I think Canelo Alvarez is extremely crafty, not just in the ring — up here [brain]. It’s similar to a football team scrimmaging early in preseason. I’m not pulling out the playbook. I’m gonna give you some mundane vanilla plays. We’ll run some power lefts or some power rights. We’ll do a couple of slams. We’ll show a little bit. But when we play you in the season, it’s not gonna be the same guy that you saw.

“If people think that they’re getting the Canelo Alvarez that fought Scull, they’re sadly mistaken. I think Canelo did just what he had to do. When you face a real threat and you’re a great fighter, you elevate mentally, psychologically, [and] physically because you have to. Canelo Alvarez is going to be different come September 13.”

Ward retired in 2017 as the pound-for-pound number one boxer, having held unified championships at super middleweight and light heavyweight. He did so at the age of 33, exiting the sport at the very top before the sport could retire him, as it were.

Before Ward hung up the gloves, he considered a plan that would’ve seen him first move up to cruiserweight to challenge then-WBC champion Tony Bellew, and then eventually face Anthony Joshua for his world heavyweight championship. Ward opted against doing so in 2017. But in 2025, it appears old habits are dying hard.

“Maybe a soft call out, it wasn’t a call-out,” Ward said of his offer to fight Joshua. “It was just — I just was honest about who I would come back against if I came back. I normally don’t have a name. I get asked this all the time. People think, for some reason, [that] I can still make 175 [pounds]. That’s out. It wasn’t easy making 175 in 2017. I’m 41 now. But that’s the type of situation that is dangerous enough to make you prepare. But it is the right situation if I had to come back.

“When you get older, the reflexes [weaken] a little bit. And obviously, I think I have a lot left in the tank, but I don’t know. If you’re going to deal with anything at an older age, you want to deal with [the] power and size of an opponent [instead] of skill, quickness, and speed. That’s a lot different to deal with than dealing with power. So, you know, that’s how I look at it. We’ll see.”

Source link