Vergil Ortiz Jr. Predicts Clear Canelo Victory Over Terence Crawford, Citing Crawford’s Size Disadvantage Despite Weight Gain

Vergil Ortiz Jr. is predicting a victory for unified super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez over Terence Crawford in their fight in September. He thinks Crawford, 37, is “too small.”

Weight vs. Belonging

He feels that it doesn’t matter that Crawford has bulked up to 180. Vergil says that putting on weight doesn’t mean he belongs at that weight. We saw that in Crawford’s last fight against WBA junior middleweight champion Israil Madrimov.

Terence bulked up to fight at 154 but didn’t possess the same power he had at 147 in his previous fight against Errol Spence Jr. in 2023 or his match before that against David Avanesyan.

“I think he’s too small. I know he just weighed in at 180. Putting on weight and belonging to that weight are two different things,” said Vergil Ortiz Jr. to Ring Magazine, talking about Terence Crawford being too small to defeat Canelo Alvarez at 168.

Crawford will bulk up for the fight, but he’s still going to be naturally smaller than Canelo. He will have good power, but he’ll need to load up on his shots to generate that power. It won’t be like with Canelo, who can hit hard effortlessly.

“I would understand if he [Terence] fought someone of less caliber, but it’s Canelo we’re talking about. That dude is good. He’s been running boxing for a long time. I think it’s going to be a clear win. Crawford gets hit. He does. He gets hit like everybody else,” said Vergil.

Crawford got hit plenty in his last fight against former WBA junior middleweight champion Israil Madrimov on August 3rd last year. He almost lost that fight. Crawford loses if Madrimov doesn’t gas out in the last three rounds.

Crawford’s Pride

“Sometimes, he gets hit pretty clean. If you get hit clean by Canelo, that’s not good. That’s really not good, whoever you are. Canelo is fast. It’s not like he’s a slow puncher. He will catch you off guard. It’s different,” said Vergil Jr.

“Crawford is a prideful guy. We’ve seen him stay in there [in the pocket and exchange]. I don’t think he should stay there if he wants to win, but sometimes the pride takes over. ‘F*** it.’ Sometimes, you just got to fight.”

Crawford is going to try and follow the Mayweather and Bivol blueprint against Canelo. That means he’s going to be on the move, hitting, running, and holding like those two did. Crawford knows that if he wins a decision, he’ll get a rematch and make even more money.

So, he’s going to be trying to outbox Canelo to get the victory and then have Turki offer him a gazillion dollars for the rematch. It’ll be boring, but what other options does Crawford have?