By Norm Frauenheim
It’s on the calendar. It’s on the Netflix schedule. It’s on our mind and in our conversations.
Canelo Álvarez-Terence Crawford is everywhere but on the map. Las Vegas is the destination. But an intriguing fight, moved around and shopped around for weeks, was still without an address Thursday.
By all accounts, the traveling show wants to land at Vegas’ newest showcase. Allegiant Arena and its 65,000 seats beckon for a Sept. 13 fight compelling because it matches two of the biggest names from different weight classes in a bout that’ll determine the best in a passing generation. Crawford or Canelo? It’s worth watching for lots of reasons. Guess here, lots of people will.
Canelo and Crawford “will finally compete against each other in the fight of the century,” Saudi Prince and primary promoter Turki Alalshikh said in a prepared statement
There have been more than a few of those over the last decade. But you get the idea. A fight sold as the best in a century can’t be staged in a modest setting. It belongs on a big stage. The biggest. In today’s Vegas, that’s Allegiant.
What seems to be simple enough, however, isn’t. Remember, this is boxing, where it’s always hard to connect the dots.
Here’s why: For now, Allegiant is booked on Sept. 13 with a Nevada-Las Vegas’ home football game against Idaho State. It’s been booked for that date for months. Initially, Canelo-Crawford was going to Allegiant the night before, Friday Sept. 12. But Saturday was thought to be a better fit for the size and potential impact of Canelo-Crawford, an all-time welterweight great and new junior-middleweight against a generational great at super-middle.
After talk of Dallas, Los Angeles and other locales, Vegas became the destination, mostly because of Canelo, who is coming off a dull victory over William Scull in front of a dull crowd in Riyadh on a May weekend when Canelo has traditionally entertained his Mexican partisans on Cinco de Mayo.
Reportedly, Canelo told Alalshikh that he wanted to go back to his home away from home, this time for another traditional date celebrating Mexican Independence. Canelo gets what he wants. So, Vegas, it is.
But Canelo’s clout within boxing circles might not be there in college football. UNLV is coming off an 11-win season. It is enjoying more momentum than it has in years. Put it this way: The Rebels, who have a renewed future and a new coach in ex-Florida head coach and ESPN commentator Dan Mullen, seem to be growing into their new home.
They drew 139,747 fans over six games last season, a 28-percent increase from 2023. By SEC standards, that’s still small, but for UNLV it’s the kind of momentum the school might not want to interrupt with a schedule change. Reportedly, Alalshikh and promotional partner Dana White are trying to get UNLV to move off the date.
According to a lot of media reports, White, the UFC chief, is promoting his first boxing show. In classic terms, perhaps that’s accurate. But White did promote Floyd Mayweather Jr. against then UFC star Conor McGregor in August 2017 at Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena.
It was sanctioned as boxing. Mayweather’s predictable victory — a 10th-round stoppage — added a Rocky Marciano milestone to his official record, putting him at 50-and-0. White knows boxing. Knows mixed martial arts. Above all, he knows promoting.
But boxing and college football are from different cultures. Let’s just say that chaos and control might face each other at the bargaining table, if in fact UNLV is even thinking about moving out of Allegiant on Sept. 13 for a different date or alternate site against Idaho State.
The game doesn’t figure to be a big draw early in a season full of lofty expectations for UNLV, ranked No. 23 in the Associated Press’ final 2024 poll. But college football is about routine for players/coaches and familiarity for a growing fan base.
Maybe, there will be enough Saudi money for UNLV to move off the date, perhaps to Sept. 12, the day initially planned for Canelo-Crawford. When UNLV announced its updated football schedule in May, one Allegiant game against Hawaii had been moved from a Saturday to Friday, Nov. 22 to Nov. 21. According to UNLV’s current schedule, a kickoff time against Idaho State has yet to be scheduled, perhaps subject to television.
Amid today’s NIL — Name, Image, Likeness — revolution in college football, Saudi money might be able to secure the services of some prep quarterback seeking seven figures before he moves on to the NFL pay scale.
Then again, maybe not.
UNLV could tell Canelo-Crawford to go somewhere else. Turns out, there is somewhere else.
Canelo, Crawford and White could go back to T-Mobile, still available Sept. 13 and reliably familiar, yet somehow not quite as monumental as all of the promise attached to one fight.
