American trainer reveals another one of his fighters he thinks would beat the Mexican legend.
It was in September of 2025 that Terence Crawford really showed what he was all about. Becoming champion in four prior divisions told us he was great, but beating Canelo Álvarez told us just how great he was.
Crawford would jump up from super-welterweight to super-middleweight–two whole divisions–to wrest Canelo’s 168-pound undisputed championship from him, beating him over 12 rounds to hold all the marbles in a division for the third time.
The mastermind behind that performance was Brian ‘BoMac’ McIntyre, The Ring‘s 2023 “Trainer of the Year” who has coached a number of notable fighters and world champions throughout his career.
One of those fighters is Lester Martínez, Guatemala’s unbeaten 168-pound banger who engaged in a firefight with Christian Mbilli on the Canelo-Crawford undercard, stealing the show in the eyes of many observers.
Since then, Mbilli has been upgraded to full WBC champion, and Martínez will get his chance at a rematch when he faces Immanuwel Aleem for the WBC interim title on the 21st of March.
McIntyre has spoken about his fighter leading up to the fight, saying that Martínez would have stopped Mbilli had their fight been over 12 rounds instead of 10.
“We would’ve stopped him in the next six minutes”, said “BoMac”.
McIntyre then spoke of what would happen if Martínez fought Canelo, saying that the experience he had with Crawford would lead to a second victory for the stable, “I personally think [Martínez] can beat Canelo. We’ve got the blueprint, right?”
Crawford retired in December, having never lost in all 42 of his fights. Whether Martínez can do similarly is yet to be seen, but any fighter training under a man who helped produce such results is in very safe hands.
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