Crawford’s Kitchen Strength Impresses Torrez Jr., Who Weighs In On Crawford Vs. Canelo Mega-Fight

2020 Olympic silver medalist heavyweight Richard Torrez Jr. says he was impressed with the power of Terence Crawford when they briefly wrestled in Bud’s kitchen a while back. Crawford got the better of the 230+ lb Torrez Jr. (12-0, 11 KOs). The two fighters have never sparred in a boxing ring.

(Credit: Medina Pizano/Matchroom)

The size and power of Torrez Jr. would obviously be too much for Crawford, who recently moved up to 154 and didn’t have any pop in his punches. Torrez Jr. says he’s on Crawford’s side in his fight against unified super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez in September. He doesn’t say who he thinks will win, but from the sounds of it, he hopes it’ll be Terence.

Heavyweight contender Torrrez Jr, 25, is fighting this Saturday night, April 15th, against Guido Vianello (13-2-1, 11 KOs) in a ten-round scheduled fight, live on ESPN+ from the Palms Casino Resort, Las Vegas.

Crawford’s Power

“I’m Team Crawford, but I’m a ride or die Canelo fan. But with that being said, I’m going to sway a little bit more toward the USA side, but I’m excited for the fight,” said heavyweight contender Richard Torrez Jr. to Sean Zittel, leaning toward Terence Crawford beating Canelo Alvarez in September.

Crawford is taking a big step up in weight, going from 154 to 168 to fight what many believe to be the #1 fighter at super middleweight, Canelo. It’s a big task ahead of Bud because he just moved up from 147 to 154 on August 3rd last year after sitting out of the ring for a year.

He didn’t look strong at that junior middleweight against Israil Madrimov and almost lost. Now, Crawford is moving up two divisions to take on Canelo after a year out of the ring. He’ll be 38 in September,  which makes it even tougher. To a certain extent, getting older in boxing can help, but not when a fighter is nearing 40. It works against them at that point.

“It came out a while ago, ‘Oh, Crawford beat Richard Torrez in wrestling,’ and I got a couple of views on that,” sid Torrez Jr. “I just want to point out that I didn’t know we were wrestling hard. We were wrestling in his kitchen, and he said, ‘Let’s see what we got.’ All of a sudden, he got a lock on me, and I was like, ‘Oh, it’s over.’

“As soon as he got that lock on me, I was like, ‘Okay, I’m done.’ So, he’s super strong, but we never got in the ring and sparred before but I love his defense for how he’s able to manage that. Tell him I want a rematch when you see him again.”