Alvarez Vs. Crawford
September 13, 2025
Fights are common; intriguing fights are occasional; but, fights that mark eras are few. Professional fights of historic value are like cairns in time. When Jack Dempsey fought Georges Carpentier on July 2, 1921 for an extravagant minimum purse of $300,000.00 with gate sales over $1.7 million dollars, that contest punched-in an era and put its mark into what is historically called the “roaring twenties” –an era in American history of great development, and of prodigal spending. Dempsey, the heavyweight champion, weighed 188 pounds while Carpentier, the light-heavyweight champion, weighed a slight 168 pounds. The event was a spectacular success for the promoters and Dempsey as the numbers above show, and Carpentier was also paid an enormous sum of $200,000.00. The press did well in promoting the event by convincing large numbers of those interested that the contest would be competitive and that Carpentier was a complex challenger for Dempsey. The truth, however, was rather simple and the outcome predicable by boxing metrics: although both men were approximately the same height, Carpentier was bound to lose as he was naturally too light to defeat Dempsey.
So it was that 104 years later on the thirteenth day of the ninth month of the quarter-century year of the twenty-first century that a white Mexican called Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fought Terrence Crawford to make mark in the sport of boxing and in the national, cultural, and racial history of North America. At this time in history many types of professional sports existed, and boxing also competed with a kind of professional fighting called mixed martial arts, thus the event did not garner the attention from the press that boxing did 100 years earlier. Nevertheless, it was a Mexican-White versus a Black American contest with both competitors carrying impressive boxing records. The fight took place at the 168 pound day-before-the-event limit. The white Mexican Alvarez was the naturally bigger man being the super-middleweight champion while the black American Crawford was the welterweight champion. Black Americans, a people that tended to define their people’s success by sports achievements, dearly wanted Crawford to win while the Mexicans, a people of a nation and culture, undoubtedly favored their countryman Alvarez. American Whites, a people of incomparable achievements to any other people known to man, watched with amusement while knowing that Alvarez would likely win. The published predictions produced in the electronic media were more or less equal indicating the fight would be competitive and the outcome uncertain. Crawford trained for nearly a year to add muscle weight to his body to be able to compete at 168 pounds. But putting on muscle to a light frame was like putting on padding to compete in rough sports to prevent or lessen injury. Furthermore, the added weight to Crawford’s body made him slower and gave extra volume for his smaller heart to facilitate. Just as Carpentier could not win at his 168 pounds, Crawford could not win with that weight. Crawford was competitive early in the fight but the naturally bigger, stronger, harder punching, and equally skilled Alvarez relentlessly pounded Crawford who later fought to survive and the judges awarded Alvarez the win while comforting Crawford with a close loss.
Ambrose
Michigan
September 13, 2025
Fights are common; intriguing fights are occasional; but, fights that mark eras are few. Professional fights of historic value are like cairns in time. When Jack Dempsey fought Georges Carpentier on July 2, 1921 for an extravagant minimum purse of $300,000.00 with gate sales over $1.7 million dollars, that contest punched-in an era and put its mark into what is historically called the “roaring twenties” –an era in American history of great development, and of prodigal spending. Dempsey, the heavyweight champion, weighed 188 pounds while Carpentier, the light-heavyweight champion, weighed a slight 168 pounds. The event was a spectacular success for the promoters and Dempsey as the numbers above show, and Carpentier was also paid an enormous sum of $200,000.00. The press did well in promoting the event by convincing large numbers of those interested that the contest would be competitive and that Carpentier was a complex challenger for Dempsey. The truth, however, was rather simple and the outcome predicable by boxing metrics: although both men were approximately the same height, Carpentier was bound to lose as he was naturally too light to defeat Dempsey.
So it was that 104 years later on the thirteenth day of the ninth month of the quarter-century year of the twenty-first century that a white Mexican called Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fought Terrence Crawford to make mark in the sport of boxing and in the national, cultural, and racial history of North America. At this time in history many types of professional sports existed, and boxing also competed with a kind of professional fighting called mixed martial arts, thus the event did not garner the attention from the press that boxing did 100 years earlier. Nevertheless, it was a Mexican-White versus a Black American contest with both competitors carrying impressive boxing records. The fight took place at the 168 pound day-before-the-event limit. The white Mexican Alvarez was the naturally bigger man being the super-middleweight champion while the black American Crawford was the welterweight champion. Black Americans, a people that tended to define their people’s success by sports achievements, dearly wanted Crawford to win while the Mexicans, a people of a nation and culture, undoubtedly favored their countryman Alvarez. American Whites, a people of incomparable achievements to any other people known to man, watched with amusement while knowing that Alvarez would likely win. The published predictions produced in the electronic media were more or less equal indicating the fight would be competitive and the outcome uncertain. Crawford trained for nearly a year to add muscle weight to his body to be able to compete at 168 pounds. But putting on muscle to a light frame was like putting on padding to compete in rough sports to prevent or lessen injury. Furthermore, the added weight to Crawford’s body made him slower and gave extra volume for his smaller heart to facilitate. Just as Carpentier could not win at his 168 pounds, Crawford could not win with that weight. Crawford was competitive early in the fight but the naturally bigger, stronger, harder punching, and equally skilled Alvarez relentlessly pounded Crawford who later fought to survive and the judges awarded Alvarez the win while comforting Crawford with a close loss.
Ambrose
Michigan
