Terence Crawford has once again revealed he is not afraid of the smoke. However, his opponents continue to find ways to slip away. The Omaha native is coming off a decisive win over Canelo Alvarez after climbing several weight classes. He has since retired from the sport and is reaping the fruits of his hard work. But he recently sat down for an interview.

While speaking to Grant ‘Tassie’ Brown in Australia, the undefeated three-division undisputed champion shed light on two fights that got away—Sebastian Fundora and Tim Tszyu. Instead, he had to face Israil Madrimov at super welterweight before he made the move to super middleweight. So, the question is, what went wrong?

“I tried to fight Tim Tszyu before he fought Fundora,” Crawford said during the interview. “They basically [were] like, ‘Nah,’ they want to go the Fundora route, you know, being that Tim was with PBC. So they like, ‘Man, he’s not about to do this to us again. He just beat Spence.’ So basically, they talked him out of it and whatnot.”

Fundora went on to face Tim Tszyu in March 2024. Although Tszyu was expected to win, Fundora produced a bloody upset and secured the win via split decision, and won the WBC and WBO super welterweight titles. Notably, Errol Spence Jr. entered the ring afterwards and faced off against Fundora to tease a bout. 

“So Fundora gets the victory. He got two titles. All right, cool. I want to fight Fundora. They said no. They said, you know what I mean? His handler said, no, we want to fight Spence. Spence is a bigger fight than you and blah, blah, blah. Like Spence is a bigger fight than me. I just beat him, but okay, cool. 

“Y’all don’t want to fight me. I’m going to fight the number one guy in the division, which was Madrimov.”

Despite leaning towards a fight against Errol Spence Jr., Sebastian Fundora never fought him. Instead, Fundora faced Chordale Booker in March 2025, before having a rematch with Tszyu later that year. Fundora recently defeated Keith Thurman via sixth-round stoppage. Tszyu, on the other hand, has been on a steep decline. 

After his loss to Fundora, he dropped a third-round TKO at the hands of Bakhram Murtazaliev. He managed to secure a win over Joseph Spencer in April 2025, but fell to Fundora in the rematch later that year. He has once again bounced back with a win over Anthony Velazquez and is scheduled to face Denis Nurja on April 5. 

Should he win, there are talks for him to face Errol Spence Jr. next. While Tszyu and Fundora withdrew from facing Crawford, there was another opponent he had considered fighting before retiring.

Terence Crawford wanted one dangerous fight

After defeating Canelo Alvarez to become undisputed at super middleweight, Crawford admitted his mind briefly turned to history once more.

“Now we beat Canelo. Now what? At first, I was like, go down to 160 and do it again—six-weight champion, four-division undisputed,” he said.

That path would have meant facing Janibek Alimkhanuly, a high-risk opponent many would avoid. 

“Janibek is a dangerous challenge. That’s what we do it for,” Crawford explained.

But when Alimkhanuly’s failed drug test disrupted the division, the opportunity vanished. With no clear route to undisputed at middleweight, Crawford chose to step away.

“It didn’t happen… this is God telling me you ain’t got nothing left to prove.”

In the following days, the WBC stripped him of his super middleweight title, alleging he failed to pay sanctioning fees. This forced ‘Bud’ to respond sharply and attracted a lot of backlash towards the sanctioning body. 

Boxing politics may have robbed fans of two compelling matchups, but here’s the harsh truth: neither Tszyu nor Fundora ever truly looked capable of beating Crawford. Disagree?