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Terence Crawford vs. Israil Madrimov will be shown on ESPN+ PPV next month on August 3rd, with the stacked undercard from top to bottom at the BMO Stadium in Los Angeles, California.
Crawford has never fought at 154, and he’s had it pretty easy during his long 16-year professional career, fighting a bunch of toothless older lions with not much left by the time he got to them for a feast. Madrimov is a different story, a guy with power, youth and at the top of his game at 29.
The Canelo Blueprint: Prove Your Worth
This is the fight that Crawford had to prove himself worthy of a mega-payday against Canelo Alvarez. His Excellency should make it tougher for Crawford to get that fight by insisting that he work his way through these three to earn the Canelo mega-dough:
- David Morrell
- David Benavidez
- Christian Mbilli
That would be the traditional American way: earning something valuable by working your hide to the bone and reaping the profits when you succeed.
If you fail, there’s always a consultation prize of fighting some lesser guys, albeit not for the millions you hoped to snatch up for that sweet retirement golden parachute. To get something that means something, Crawford must make the ultimate challenge.
Is it asking too much for Crawford to beat Morrell, Benavidez, and Mbilli to get that Canelo prize? I want to know. Just walk the plank, Crawford, over a nest of cobras, and if you get to the other side, get that Canelo with both hands and buy that mansion in Beverly Hills, California, and live like a King.
A Stacked Undercard: More Than Just Crawford
As far as I can see, there’s a lot to like on this card, and there are only a couple of mismatches. The main event might be upset with WBA junior middleweight champion Madrimov (10-0-1, 7 KOs) giving former three-division world champion Crawford (40-0, 31 KO) a bad welcome to the 154-lb division.
The co-feature fight between hyped heavyweight Jared Anderson (17-0, 15 KOs) and Martin Bakole (20-1, 15 KOs) is good, but it should be buried further down on the undercard below several of the other fights. Anderson looks like a fighter going nowhere, and I suspect he’ll lose to Bakole and disappear from the prominent spots he’s had on Top Rank cards.
U.S. fans aren’t high on the 24-year-old Anderson, despite his glittering unbeaten record and many fights on ESPN. American fans would rather see one of these fights in the co-feature.
- Isaac ‘Pitbull’ Cruz vs. Jose ‘Rayo’Valenzuela
- David Morrell vs. Radivoje Kalajdzic
- Andy Cruz vs. Antonio Moran
Those fights are more appealing to fans in the U.S. than watching Jared Anderson fight, as he’s looked poor in recent fights against Ryad Merhy and Charles Martin.
Ruiz vs. Miller: A Clash of Faded Stars
The other undercard fight is between inactive former unified heavyweight champion Andy Ruiz Jr and Jarrell ‘Big Baby’ Miller. Ruiz was briefly popular when he upset IBF, WBA, and WBO heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua, knocking him out in the seventh round on June 1st, 2019, at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Ruiz immediately slacked off, gained a lot of weight, failed to train properly, and lost his titles in a one-sided twelve-round unanimous decision rematch with Joshua on December 7th, 2019.
Since that loss, Ruiz has fought only twice in the last five years. Ruiz’s ambition has disappeared with the $10 million+ that he got from the two AJ fights, and he’s now just a shadow of the fighter he once was in early 2019.
It’s hard to believe how badly Ruiz has frittered away his popularity by not staying active with his career because he could have done so much more and made a ton of dough to go on top of the $10M windfall he got from his two matches against Joshua.
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