Winners and Losers of Canelo Alvarez vs. Terence Crawford Fight Announcement

If you didn't know, now you know.

No one stirs the boxing drink quite like Canelo Alvarez.

The cinnamon-haired Mexican icon has been a fixture on the sport's biggest stages since his blockbuster duel with Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2013, and he stopped the virtual presses again with news of an agreement for a long-rumored showdown with Terence Crawford.

It's another defense of the stash of belts Alvarez holds in the 168-pound weight class, but it's by no means just another fight. Crawford, like Alvarez, has been a champion in four weight classes, he's also never lost in 41 pro fights, and he'll be climbing up the ladder from the 154-pound division where he's been a belted champion since last summer.

Like in-season trades involving two incumbent all-NBA players, clashes between reigning champions and sure-fire Hall of Fame inductees don't happen often. So it's no surprise that the boxing wing of B/R's combat headquarters was instantly abuzz with activity.

We took a look here at the winners and losers in the immediate aftermath of the agreement, which was reported Monday morning by The Ring, among others. Take a look at what we came up with and drop a thought or two of your own in the app comments.

Like we alluded to in the intro, things like this simply don't happen often.

It's one thing to have unification fights like Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury, and another to have fighters like Crawford these days–and Manny Pacquiao a decade or two before him–climbing multiple rungs up the ladder to pursue more and more bejeweled belts.

But it's something else entirely when two generational A-list superstars get together in something close to their primes like Mayweather and Pacquiao finally did as reigning welterweight champions in 2015.

This is an all-too-rare example of it, and it's a lead-pipe cinch it'll be the lead item on SportsCenter and everywhere else come fight night in September. And it's for that reason that boxing fans, from casual to hardcore, are the biggest beneficiaries.

But can the competitiveness of the match mirror the gravity of the event?

That's the (multi) million-dollar question.

This just in: A-list fighters make pretty good money.

So when two A-list fighters get together for this sort of spectacle, it's a safe bet that the checks they'll be cashing will rival some gross national products and move them a little closer to the top of Forbes' annual list of the world's highest-paid athletes.

Alvarez, incidentally, is 14th on that list with a tidy haul of $85 million between May 1, 2023, and May 1, 2024.

Crawford didn't make it above the $45.2 million cut line, but he's a better bet going forward, particularly if he comes anywhere close to the guess made by former Ring editor Randy Gordon on the potential paydays for him and his imminent rival.

"Let's start with $60 million apiece," Gordon told Bleacher Report.

Yes, we know there's a lot to unpack here.

There are plenty of people with legitimate concerns about the recent shift in boxing that's made Alalshikh, the 43-year-old Saudi national whose official title is "chairman of the General Entertainment Authority," the most powerful player in the game.

Suffice to say, the concerns are valid. But rather than going down a human rights (or any other) rabbit hole in this space, we're going to stay on topic.

And when it comes specifically to boxing, it's impossible to argue that Alalshikh's influence hasn't been significant and beneficial.

For years, one of the sport's biggest Achilles' heels has been a lack of meaningful fights between obvious rivals—be they champions in the same weight class or natural foes kept away from one another by warring promoters.

To suggest all wounds have been healed is ridiculous. But reality is reality.

Fights like Fury-Usyk, Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol, and, now, Alvarez and Crawford are being finalized with regularity. And it's been Alalshikh's arrival on the scene, fulfilling a mission to fix a "broken" sport, that's made it happen.

It's probably no coincidence the news came when it did.

Just 30 or so hours before The Ring reported that the Alvarez-Crawford agreement was in place, the man portrayed as Canelo's most fearsome would-be adversary was in action.

That man, for those unaware, is David Benavidez.

And after he stomped a mud hole into a previously unbeaten David Morrell Jr. atop a pay-per-view show at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, the still-unbeaten 28-year-old—a two-time title claimant in the weight class where Alvarez now reigns—had the sport's undivided attention.

Not surprisingly, he used it to repeat a claim that Alvarez wants no part of him, following up on past suggestions that a $70 million offer had been made and rejected.

"If I (was) such an easy target, he would've came and beat me," Benavidez said. "Just for him not fighting me, let's me know how dangerous I am."

Dangerous or not, now that Crawford is on the docket for September, Benavidez can probably douse any flame he's still carrying that he and Alvarez will ever share a ring.

That doesn't mean the Phoenix-based "Monster" can't further his pound-for-pound case with a match against the Beterbiev-Bivol rematch winner. But as good as that or any other option might ultimately be, it won't be the same as a Canelo fight. And that's a shame.

No offense intended to Jake and Logan Paul.

OK, maybe a little offense intended. But not too much.

Anyway, we'll concede the events they've manufactured over the past few years have been fun. They've made for some interesting press conferences. They've gotten some people to watch boxing—or at least something packaged as boxing—that otherwise wouldn't.

And they've cashed huge paychecks. So, good for them.

But every now and then, a fight comes along that illustrates the difference between what it looks like on the highest level, and what it looks like when the Pauls are involved.

Alvarez and Crawford are fighters of the highest order. They've passed every conceivable ring test. They've displayed the sort of mettle possessed only by the truly elite.

And come September or whenever the opening bell actually rings, fans tuning in to watch them will be witnessing greatness in a way that watching a guy fight a 58-year-old, or an ex-basketball player, or an ex-MMA star—no matter how well it's sold—could never allow.