By: Sean Crose

No one has doubted that Terence Crawford will be in shape when he steps into the ring to face Canelo Alvarez in September. Crawford, after all has been one of the hardest working athletes in the world and a picture of discipline. Not only that, the fight with Canelo will be the biggest of his life, so there’s little surprise that he will be well prepared by the time the opening bell rings. Still, there’s something surprising about recent pictures of Crawford. While it’s true he’s moving up two full divisions, no one expected the man to look so… natural as a super middleweight. Indeed, there were some that expected him not to gain much weight before facing Canelo.

Recent pictures however, indicate a very muscular and bulked up Crawford training for the fight of his life in a few weeks. Crawford looks big to put it mildly. Not Tyson Fury big. Not Anthony Joshua big, but big for a fighter of his natural size. Not just big but strong and extremely well conditioned. In short, Crawford looks like he might fit very nicely into the super middleweight division. The question is, will he be able to beat Canelo? Bulked up or not, every fighter on the planet would have his hands full against the red-haired face of boxing. Unlike some fighters, Canelo isn’t only extremely popular amongst his fans, he’s actually an excellent world class professional.

That’s something Crawford is no doubt keeping in mind. Yet Crawford himself is also a threat to any athlete out there who decides to face him in the boxing ring. He may be the smaller of the two men come fight night- then again, he may not -but no one can deny the Nebraska native has a massively impressive skill set. He’s not just undefeated, Crawford, he’s undefeated against the likes of Shawn Porter and Errol Spence Jr, no small thing. It’s not a question of whether or not Crawford is as great as Canelo. It’s simply a question of can he go into foreign territory as it were and beat Canelo on Canelo’s home turf?

One thing is certain and that’s the fact that Crawford doesn’t look to be out of his league. That’s something some fans thought would be the case. Again, however, Crawford has made his reputation proving the doubters wrong. People weren’t taking this fight seriously, and frankly with good reason. Now though it looks like there may be a very interesting throwdown this September between two of the best in the business.