Terence Crawford has landed the fight that means the most to his legacy, but he almost lost out on it to Jake Paul.

Crawford has been calling out Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez since his undisputed welterweight win against Errol Spence Jr in mid-2023, even despite the Mexican being three divisions higher at super-middleweight.

‘Bud’s pursuit ramped up after he closed the gap slightly by moving up to the 154 ranks to beat Israil Madrimov and become WBA Champion. Though Canelo had been dismissive of the match-up previously, he thawed and at the beginning of 2025 it was reported the two were negotiating through Riyadh Season’s Turki Alalshikh.

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Everything was looking positive until it was reported that Canelo, currently unified champion at 168, was deep in negotiations for a sideshow fight against controversial superstar Jake Paul. It was announced that the Crawford fight was off, with the assumption being Alalshikh was not a fan of the Paul bout taking any attention away from it.

Ultimately though, Canelo signed a four-fight deal with Riyadh Season, commencing with a fight against IBF Champion William Scull for a chance to become undisputed at super-middleweight again. All going well for the elite Mexican, the Crawford fight will follow in September.

Paul has since branded Alvarez a ‘duck,’ claiming he had already signed a contract. Though it was a busy time for boxing news, one man who wasn’t involved was Crawford, who told Cigar Talk he had been offline and didn’t believe the reports when he was informed.

“To be 100% honest, I didn’t know nothing about none of that stuff.

I didn’t see nothing until people started calling me. I was like, ‘huh? What’s going on?’ They was like, ‘man, they cancelled your fight.’ Ain’t nobody told me, ain’t nobody called me, ain’t nobody said nothing to me, so I can’t really say what they were talking about is true. I didn’t really feed into it.

I reached out to Turki and he said everything was Gucci, so I didn’t know what everybody else was talking about.”

Crawford will sit out until September, when he will likely get the chance to become a five-weight, three-time undisputed champion.