Terence Crawford has once again revealed he is not afraid of the smoke. But his opponents continue to find ways to slip away. The Nebraska-born technician is coming off a decisive win over Canelo Alvarez after climbing several weight classes. He has since retired from the sport and is reaping the fruits of his hard work. But he recently sat down for an interview.
While speaking to Grant ‘Tassie’ Brown in Australia, the undefeated former three-division undisputed champion shed light on two fights that got away—Sebastian Fundora and Tim Tszyu. Instead, he had to face Israil Madrimov at super welterweight before he made the move to super middleweight. So, the question is, what went wrong?
“I tried to fight Tim Tszyu before he fought Fundora,” Crawford said during the interview. “They basically [were] like, ‘Nah,’ they want to go the Fundora route, you know, being that Tim was with PBC. So they like, man, he’s not about to do this to us again. He just beat Spence. So basically, they talked him out of it and whatnot.
“So Fundora gets the victory. He got two titles. All right, cool. I want to fight Fundora. They said no. They said, you know what I mean? His handler said, no, we want to fight Spence. Spence is a bigger fight than you and blah, blah, blah. Like Spence is a bigger fight than me. I just beat him, but okay, cool.
Terence Crawford says he tried to fight both Tim Tszyu and Sebastian Fundora at 154, but they said no
“They said no. We want to fight Spence, Spence is a bigger fight than you..
I’m like ‘Spence is a bigger fight than me? I just beat him’”
@JaiMcAllisterx pic.twitter.com/YdJ524EwnK
— Source of Boxing (@Sourceofboxing) March 31, 2026
“Y’all don’t want to fight me. I’m going to fight the number one guy in the division, which was Madrimov.”
After his loss to Fundora, he dropped a third-round TKO at the hands of Bakhram Murtazaliev. He managed to secure a win over Joseph Spencer in April 2025, but fell to Fundora in the rematch later that year. He has once again bounced back with a win over Anthony Velazquez and is scheduled to face Denis Nurja on April 5.
Terence Crawford wanted one dangerous fight
After defeating Canelo Alvarez to become undisputed at super middleweight, Crawford admitted his mind briefly turned to history once more.
“Now we beat Canelo. Now what? At first, I was like, go down to 160 and do it again—six-weight champion, four-division undisputed,” he said.
That path would have meant facing Janibek Alimkhanuly, a high-risk opponent many would avoid.
“Janibek is a dangerous challenge. That’s what we do it for,” Crawford explained.
But when Alimkhanuly’s failed drug test disrupted the division, the opportunity vanished. With no clear route to undisputed at middleweight, Crawford chose to step away.
“It didn’t happen… this is God telling me you ain’t got nothing left to prove.”
In the following days, the WBC stripped him of his super middleweight title, alleging he failed to pay sanctioning fees. This forced ‘Bud’ to respond sharply and attracted a lot of backlash towards the sanctioning body.
Boxing politics may have robbed fans of two compelling matchups, but here’s the harsh truth: neither Tszyu nor Fundora ever truly looked capable of beating Crawford. Disagree?
