Max Kellerman has claimed that Terence Crawford’s career-best win could age badly, if Canelo loses upon his return to action in September 2026.
When Terence Crawford beat Canelo Alvarez on the 13th of September, it was impressive for many reasons. For one thing, he was moving up two divisions in one go. Secondly, he was challenging the undisputed champion in his first fight at the weight. Thirdly, he was the underdog.
Despite the brilliant nature of the victory, there were plenty of believers who thought ‘Bud’ Crawford (42-0, 31 KOs) would win. After all, the man from Nebraska had been on the pound-for-pound list for years, and despite being the older man, he had taken far less knocks over far less fights than his Mexican opponent.
But the performance can’t be denied of him either way, as with the win, Terence Crawford became a champion in five divisions, undisputed in three, and the first boxer in history since Henry Armstrong to do the latter.
But with that being said, many people saw a decline in Canelo Álvarez (63-3-2, 39 KOs) long before he fought Crawford.
This decline can be traced back to his defeat to Dmitry Bivol in 2022. Coming off a stoppage over Caleb Plant, Canelo was universally regarded as the number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world, having suffered just one official defeat in 60 professional fights across 16 years and claiming titles in four weight classes.
It was in that fourth weight class–light-heavyweight–that Canelo ventured to for a second time to take on Bivol for his WBA title. Canelo was ultimately convincingly outboxed, losing for the first official time since 2013 and being sent back down to super-middleweight.
Canelo would go on to make four defences of his undisputed titles. After the fourth, he vacated his IBF title to defend against Edgar Berlanga instead of mandatory William Scull.
After Scull picked up the vacant title over Vladimir Shishkin, Canelo chose to fight the Cuban to reclaim his undisputed status.
The fight resulted in the lowest punch output in CompuBox history, and it was roundly criticised as an incredibly drab affair.
People noted that Canelo’s feet were far too slow, his punches weren’t finding the target and his ability to cut off the ring was all but gone.
But these were things that had been said long before the Scull fight. Indeed, in all of Canelo’s defences since his loss to Bivol, he had failed to score a single stoppage, only posting as much as a knockdown in any of them. This was as opposed to his run of wins between Sergey Kovalev and Caleb Plant a few years ago, where he stopped everyone he fought apart from Callum Smith.
What makes Canelo’s lack of stoppages look even worse is that John Ryder, Jaime Munguía, and Edgar Berlanga (all of whom Canelo went the distance with) were stopped very soon after Canelo fought them.
Now, on the newest episode of the ‘Inside The Ring’ podcast, Max Kellerman has claimed that if Canelo looks bad in his next fight, it will take the shine off of Crawford’s historical performance in September.
If Canelo Álvarez looks bad in his return to the ring, does it hurt Terence Crawford’s legacy?
The panel weighs in.#InsideTheRing | Latest episode available on DAZN 📺 pic.twitter.com/3ufGBFRyiP
— InsideRingShow (@InsideRingShow) January 21, 2026
There is no doubt that Canelo has lost a step. After all, he began his career at 15 years old and is now more than double that age. With Terence Crawford retiring in December, what would it mean for the biggest win of his career to be devalued so soon after?
Crawford’s retirement (whether temporary or permanent) has caused all the belts to scatter, and this gives Canelo the opportunity to be a world champion once again, with a number of opponents available as potential options. But if he ends up performing poorly (or, indeed, losing), what light would that shine on Crawford’s triumph just four months ago?
We’ll just have to see.
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