The earliest Terence Crawford could return to the squared circle will be in May 2025, Turki Alalshikh, chairman of the General Entertainment Authority in Saudi Arabia, said on the Ariel x Ade Show on Tuesday.
Alalshikh joined the show, which is hosted by Ariel Helwani and Ade Oladipo on DAZN, to explain that he tried to arrange for Crawford to fight Vergil Ortiz Jnr, but “Bud” is not able to properly prepare for a fight for the time being.
“I tried and I pushed to do this fight [against Ortiz],” said Alalshikh. “But Crawford now is not ready and not training. He has a small, little health issue, a little injury, but he prefers to fight with us in May and after May. These are the options.”
Ortiz will fight Israil Madrimov on February 22 in Saudi Arabia, it was announced yesterday, as part of the undercard headlined by the rematch between undisputed light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol.
The four-division champion Crawford has a record of 41-0 (31 KOs) and is one of the sport’s pound-for-pound kings. He has not fought since scoring a unanimous decision win in August against Madrimov for the WBA junior middleweight title.
In recent months, the Nebraska native Crawford, 37, has been angling for a showdown against super middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist, writer and broadcast reporter whose work has appeared on ESPN, Fox Sports, USA Today, The Guardian, Newsweek, Men’s Health, NFL.com, Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Ring Magazine and more. He has been writing for BoxingScene since 2018. Manouk is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and the MMA Journalists Association. He can be reached on , , and , through email at manouk[dot]akopyan[at]gmail.com or via .