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Did Terence Crawford Just Leak Next Fight Against Undefeated Champion?
Terence Crawford on September 9, 2025. IMAGO / Hoganphotos

Did Terence Crawford Just Leak Next Fight Against Undefeated Champion?

Originally posted on KO on SI  |  By Grant Young  |  Last updated Oct 29, 2025 12:10 PM ET

The boxing world is in a collective waiting pattern to find out which direction Terence Crawford decides to go next in his boxing career.

Crawford is still riding a high after defeating Canelo Alvarez via unanimous decision on September 13, which made Crawford the undisputed super middleweight champion and the first male in boxing history to reach undisputed status in three different weight classes.

What's more, Crawford earned the biggest payday of his life in that fight, and his victory has set him up to make even more money if he returns to the ring.

That seems to be a big "if" right now, though, given that Crawford just turned 38 years old and has already accomplished everything there is to accomplish in the sport. He doesn't need the money, and there's a case to be made that Crawford would only be putting his immaculate legacy at risk if he were to keep fighting and suffer a loss. Therefore, there's a world where Crawford hangs up the gloves for good and never fights again.

IMAGO / Hoganphotos

If Crawford does return to fight, only a few bouts would seem to make sense. One would be a rematch with Canelo, given that's undoubtedly the most lucrative bout available to him. He could also try to become an undisputed champion in the middleweight (160-pound division), which he skipped over to fight Canelo.

Crawford has been an undisputed champion at the 147, 154, and 168-pound weight classes. And there's a pretty clear pathway for him to at least challenge for undisputed status at 160 pounds in his next two fights.

Did Terence Crawford Leak a Fight Against Janibek Alimkhanuly?

Crawford is currently at the WBO Convention 2025 in Bogotá, Colombia. He has been documenting the experience on his Instagram story. And on October 28, he was taking a video that might have teased a matchup between him and the current WBO and IBF middleweight champion, Janibek Alimkhanuly.

Crawford was taking a video of a screen that showed a photo of him posing. Right after that, a photo of Alimkhanuly came up, in the same way that a graphic for a fight might be revealed. Perhaps even more telling was that Crawford quickly turned the camera away, as if he was trying to hide what had just been shown.

This video has since circulated on social media and is going viral.

It also prompted a response from Alimkhanuly (who is a perfect 17-0 with 12 KOs as a professional), who replied to the X post of the video from @AccordToBoxing and wrote, "No problem ✅".

The other two champions at middleweight are Erislandy Lara (WBA) and Carlos Adames (WBC). If these two fought and then Crawford fought Alimkhanuly, the winners of both bouts could then match up for the undisputed middleweight title.

This would make a ton of sense on paper and give Crawford a path to earning undisputed status in a fourth weight class.

To be clear, there's a chance that there was nothing to Crawford and Alimkhanuly being next to each other on that graphic. It could have been (and perhaps likely was) just showing the current WBO champions in descending order due to weight class, which is why Crawford still hasn't deleted the video from his story.

But this video is still enough to spark speculation on Crawford's future.

This article first appeared on KO on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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