The surprising change in Terence Crawford during Canelo camp that has shocked his own team

Moving up two weight classes as a boxer is no mean feat; maintaining a fight-ready physique and improving your athletic performance while doing so is even harder.

As a result, fans have voiced their concerns that Terence Crawford will lose his signature fluid footwork, speed and versatility as a result of the 14lb he has put on for his upcoming super middleweight clash with Canelo. But his strength and conditioning coach Chet Fortune claims the opposite is true – Bud is only getting better.

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“The beauty of the situation is that we have members of our team who are not in camp [all the time] – I’m talking about people like his agent, PR team and photographers, who are only with us at certain points,” Fortune says.

“Everybody that’s seen him recently, whether he’s sparring or doing his boxing work, says it looks like he’s got more speed.”

Crawford agrees. In a promotional documentary series for the fight, he tells Netflix: “Putting on muscle doesn’t mean that you’re going to be slower. But you punch a little harder.”

Below, Fortune explains why super middleweight will suit his fighter, and why he expects to see Crawford’s arm raised come 13 September.

It is only natural to assume Canelo has the upper hand going into this fight as far as the weight class is concerned at least. He has been fighting at super middleweight for years, this is the body he is accustomed to using, whereas Crawford has to adapt to a physique that is largely foreign to him.

However, while Bud is now sporting broader shoulders and a more muscular upper body in general, Fortune says the extra 14lb “isn’t significant enough to slow him down”.

“I think 168lb is a natural weight for him,” he continues. “To me, he’s not sacrificing a thing. [For the fight] he’s not going to be dehydrated and he’s going to have the muscle mass we expect on his frame [rather than losing muscle in a sharp calorie cut to make weight].

“From a speed perspective, if anything, I think he looks faster at 168lb than he did when he fought at 154lb. Everybody we brought into camp has had an opportunity to see him in the ring, whether that be on the pads or the bag work or sparring, and they’ve all said the same thing: ‘How has he increased in size but still looks just as fast, if not faster?’”

Despite only recently adding mass to his frame, Crawford will not look like the smaller fighter in the ring either, according to Fortune. The pair are similar heights, they will come into the fight at the same weight, but Bud has a larger reach.

“Canelo has more experience fighting at this weight, getting hit by guys at this weight and throwing punches at guys this weight,” Fortune says. “But from a genetic standpoint, Bud’s not the smaller guy.”

Canelo may be more accustomed to fighting at super middleweight in the public eye, but Crawford has accrued plenty of experience in the ring with heavier fighters, albeit behind closed doors.

“What people don’t realise about Bud is that, naturally, his main sparring partners are 168lb or 175lb. We’ve done that for a long time,” Fortune explains.

“There’s Steven Nelson who, before he fought Pacheco, was rated in the top 10 of all four federations – he’s naturally a 215lb guy who gets down to 168lb, so he packs a lot of power.

“Then there’s a lot of other fighters like Lester Martinez. So it’s not like I felt like we needed to change a lot for Canelo.”

Nelson has also had his say on the situation, telling Fighthype: “It’s not like he’s a small guy and he’s putting on a bunch of weight – he’s always been bigger and he’s always had to cut down. The difference for this fight is he won’t have to cut down.

“He’s going to do something that nobody is expecting… He’s always had power, but now it’s a different power. He still has the speed, movement and ability – it’s crazy.”

Terence Crawford’s Final Physical Appearance Reveal Has Canelo Alvarez Fans Scared

After what has been months of anticipation and excitement continuing to build, the boxing world is now just eight days away from getting to see Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford meet in the ring, as their showdown is all set for Allegiant Stadium on September 13 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Given how great both of these boxers are and their nearly immaculate respective resumés, fans are finding anything they can to try and figure out whether Canelo or Crawford will have the edge next Saturday. Of course, many are already leaning toward Canelo, given that Crawford is moving up several weight classes to challenge him.

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Because many believe this size difference will ultimately decide who wins the fight, there has been a ton of intrigue around what Crawford will weigh when he enters the ring next weekend. And in the same vein as this, fans are curious to see what Crawford looks like when he fights.

Will Crawford have the same lean, speed-focused physique he has had throughout his career, or will he elect to bulk up some so he can better compete with Canelo’s power advantage?

It seems some of these questions have now been answered.

Terence Crawford Reveals Final Physical Appearance Before Canelo Alvarez Fight

Fans no longer need to wait about how Crawford will look when fighting Canelo, as he made an Instagram post on September 5 that showed him flexing with his shirt off, which was captioned, “8️⃣ days AND WE READY‼️”.

Crawford looks absolutely shredded in the photos, which makes clear that he didn’t put on too much size for this superfight.

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A post shared by Terence Bud Crawford (@tbudcrawford)

This photo has since been posted across various social media channels. And fans seem to be impressed with the form Crawford is showing.

“Bud Crawford will push Canelo back, be stronger on fight night, and dig to the body like no other Canelo opponent has before,” one fan wrote in an X comment in reply to Ring Magazine’s post about Crawford’s physique.

Another fan wrote, “Yea ummmm this is pretty terrifying for any Canelo fan 😳”.

“I’m praying for Canelo 🙏🏼 he don’t know what he got himself into!” a third added.

Of course, a fighter’s physique ultimately doesn’t say anything about how they will fare in a fight. But it’s clear that Crawford is taking this fight as seriously as possible and appears to be in the best shape of his life right now.

How Canelo moved away from traditional Mexican style ahead of Terence Crawford super-fight

Canelo Alvarez is a proud Mexican and is one of the country’s most successful fighters of all time – who returns on September 13 to take on Terence Crawford in an era-defining fight for the undisputed super middleweight titles.

Mexican fighters carry a proud tradition of being no-nonsense, all-action fighters who can go toe-to-toe with anyone that is put in front of them.

Alvarez is one of these men, but as we have seen him grow and develop in nearly 70 professional fights, he has also developed his own unique style that has seen him pull away from the traditional Mexican way of fighting.

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He learns from every opponent he faces, and it is clear to see as you track the chronology of his career that important fights like his loss to Floyd Mayweather, his war with Miguel Cotto and his fights with Gennady Golovkin have all played an important role in shaping the Canelo we see today.

So, how exactly has Canelo adapted through adversity to become an all-time great?

Canelo has always been a defensively savvy fighter, able to make his opponents miss and then make them pay. But a turning point that seemed to put Canelo on another level was when he was outclassed by a veteran Floyd Mayweather Jr across 12 rounds.

Mayweather showed Canelo a different level of defensive mastery – making micro adjustments with his head and feet to create a hair’s breadth of space to keep him close enough to counter with precision.

Canelo had previously done as many fighters do and stayed in almost constant motion to never present a static target your opponent can gamble on, but what he learned from Mayweather is that you only need to move when it’s an absolute necessity, which allows for more energy down the stretch in a fight.

Two fights that are great examples of when this defensive adaptation came to the fore are his first fight with Gennady Golovkin in 2017 and when he faced Daniel Jacobs in 2019.

Canelo was the much faster and more explosive fighter against Golovkin and used this to his advantage. He would, while exchanging in the middle of the ring, lean back after he threw his punches to narrowly avoid the counter left hooks of Golovkin. When on the back foot, he would pivot away to his left and turn his head away, making the right hands of Golovkin miss by mere millimetres, and would never move unless something was coming his way.

Against Jacobs, it was a superb example of being able to download your opponent’s patterns early in a fight and see everything coming your way.

He knew that he had to stay close to Jacobs, who had the height and reach advantage, and he did this with elegant and otherworldly movement – able to make Jacobs miss with 17 shots in a row at one point and counter with heavy jabs and hooks.

This allowed him to walk Jacobs down, even though he was throwing far fewer punches, almost the opposite of a traditional Mexican fighter who looks to pour on pressure with high volume and less head movement.

After the Jacobs fight, Canelo opted to move up to light-heavyweight, an unprecedented decision for a man who was previously considered an undersized middleweight.

Sergey Kovalev was perhaps over the hill at this point, but was still an incredibly dangerous fighter, world champion and much larger than Alvarez.

Canelo, therefore, was forced to evolve once again to allow himself to get close and land his power shots on Kovalev.

To achieve this, Canelo relied heavily on a strong high guard, absorbing most of the shots Kovalev would throw and then exploding on the counter.

His head movement was still present, but he knew it was more risky to try and evade the shots from the bigger man because if he got caught, he would be in a compromised position and would risk getting knocked out.

Canelo shocked many by walking Kovalev down and countering his jabs with left hooks and overhand rights to great effect. He knew his opportunity would come when Kovalev would run out of steam due to unloading ineffective punches onto his gloves.

This was one of the most notable changes Canelo has made in the second half of his career, using the threat of his heavy counter punches to muzzle his opponents whilst staying in range all the time rather than trying to use his head movement to get close.

Between the second Golovkin fight, where we saw Canelo utilise a high volume style as we had seen for so many years against the likes of Shane Mosley and Alfredo Angulo, he threw almost half the amount of punches but landed a higher percentage.

Canelo has become a master of not waiting for opportunities but creating them for himself using intelligence and educated pressure to force opponents to leave gaps in their defence for him to capitalise on.

This is not to say that Mexican fighters do not set traps, just that Alvarez does it in a unique way that is supremely effective and with more variety.

A perfect example of this is from slightly earlier in his career against Amir Khan.

Against Khan, Canelo came up against a man with extremely fast hands and feet. He knew he needed to catch Khan flat-footed to be able to put him down.

He did this by setting up the iconic overhand right that was the 2016 knockout of the year.

Throughout the early going of the fight, Canelo would mix his lead left hooks to head and body to create uncertainty in Khan, who was very reactive to Canelo’s feints.

Alvarez then proceeded to target the body, dropping his level by bending his legs to throw a jab or backhand to the body, which an intelligent fighter like Khan would pick up on and make adjustments to on the fly.

But the Mexican knew just what Khan would do. The Brit dropped his hands from his guard and attempted to pull back or pivot away from the body shots, which were perfectly set up.

Then in the sixth round, Canelo launched his attack, dropping his level, which stalled Khan’s feet and dropped his hands, opening up the head up to attack, and Canelo obliged by detonating an overhand and flattening Khan.

This exercise in patience, knowing he was dropping some of the early rounds, is something that other, more traditional fighters would not do and would generally opt to hunt down Khan as he tried to evade them, but Canelo brought Khan to him.