A new report from Mexican outlet Televisa Puebla reveals Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez’s return date to boxing, and his probable opponent.
A pound-for-pound mainstay, Alvarez has rebounded from a 2022 loss to Dmitry Bivol by winning five fights in a row against the likes of Gennadiy Golovkin, Jaime Munguia, and Edgar Berlanga. Though he continues to be a bona fide attraction at the gate, and box office, he has attracted criticism for seemingly avoiding his greatest challenger — David Benavidez.
If the latest reports are true, though, fans will be thrilled with his rumored opponent.
According to the report, Canelo will next fight in “May or June 2025” which is typical for the Mexican fighter. This is because fights on the weekend closest to Cinco de Mayo, a Mexican holiday, are crucial to the lifeblood of Las Vegas events. It is unclear, though, if Canelo, at this point, will fight once again in Vegas, or compete elsewhere — like Riyadh, in Saudi Arabia.
His opponent, Televisa Puebla speculate, could be Terence Crawford, who is one of the finest fighters on the entire planet, with wins over Yuriorkis Gamboa, Viktor Postol, Amir Khan, Shawn Porter, Errol Spence, and Israil Madrimov. Crawford has only fought once a year since two bouts in 2019 but is widely regarded right now as one of the three or four best boxers in the world.
There are few legitimate fighters out there for Canelo to choose from, outside of Benavidez and Crawford. But a Canelo vs Crawford bout, particularly if it was held in the US, could potentially break the mythical 1 million pay-per-view sales barrier.
Of Crawford’s PPV events, his thumping victory over Spence was by far his most successful as it sold to 700,000 homes in the US alone. Canelo, meanwhile, has fought 16 times on pay-per-view, selling to a combined 11.6 million homes for almost $1 billion in revenue.
