Canelo Alvarez vs. Terence Crawford Live Winners and Losers, Results
It was the biggest fight in years.
Which made it the biggest fight day in years.
Four-weight champion Canelo Alvarez met one of the few fighters who could challenge his Hall of Fame-worthy resume on Saturday night in Las Vegas, when he risked 168-pound supremacy against Terence Crawford at Allegiant Stadium.
Alvarez had held belts of one significance or another at 168 since 2020 and had never lost at super middleweight across 12 fights, scoring four KOs. He'd also been a champion at 154, 160 and 175 pounds in a career that began in 2005.
Crawford, meanwhile, had reigned at 135, 140, 147 and 154 pounds and was unbeaten in 41 fights since turning pro in 2008. He'd never weighed in beyond 154 until Friday, when he tipped the scales at 167.5, matching Alvarez's weight.
They topped a 10-bout card whose main portion went live on Netflix at 9 p.m. ET. The preliminary card began at 5:30 p.m. ET on UFC.com, Tudum by Netflix, and UFC YouTube.
The B/R combat team was in place to take in the action and deliver a real-time list of the event's winners and losers. Take a look at what we came up with and drop a thought of your own in the app comments.
Winner: Meet the New Boss
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The Alvarez-Crawford fight was the first big promotional splash by the insurgent tandem of Dana White and Turki Al-Sheikh and it'd be hard to imagine their pet project starting off on a more substantive high.
In a fight pitched as the most-watched since Muhammad Ali beat Leon Spinks in their 1978 heavyweight rematch, Crawford became a five-division champion and picked up his third "undisputed" laurels with a masterful decision win.
One judge gave him eight of 12 rounds and two gave him seven, slightly less than the nine we awarded him on the B/R scorecard, but no less impressive given that he was making just his second appearance beyond 147 pounds and first past 154.
The crowd of more than 70,000, though largely made up of Alvarez backers, gave the winner his kudos when the decision was announced, and the new champion fell to his knees in a rare show of emotion.
He didn't say it specifically, but it certainly had the feel of a competitive swan song.
"I've seen his journey. One accomplishment after the next," analyst Andre Ward said. "All he's done is answer the doubters with excellence and professionalism. Terence Crawford truly did it his way and a lot of people were wrong. If this was his last fight, he's done everything that he wanted to do. At this point in his life and career, the debate is over."
Loser: Missing an Opportunity
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Blow-by-blow man Jon Anik teed analyst Max Kellerman for the chance to compliment the winner of the co-main event, suggesting next week's boxing chatter would be about which fighter did enough to separate himself on the sport's biggest 2025 stage.
But rather than heaping praise on Callum Walsh or Fernando Vargas Jr., Kellerman veered.
"I think the discourse will be 'Did you see the Mbilli-Lester Martinez fight?'" he said. "(The co-main) is a learning experience fight. Vargas is perceived as being in over his head, but Callum Walsh may want to fight with a little more intensity in the future against a fighter over whom he is favored."
Indeed, though Walsh, one of Dana White's earliest projects as a boxing promoter, wound up a winner by a wide unanimous decision—winning nine of 10 rounds on two cards and all 10 on another—he didn't do much to put himself in line for a post-show performance bonus.
He controlled distance in the battle of southpaws and worked well to the body in frequent spots throughout 10 rounds, but Vargas acquitted himself well, too, considering he'd won 17 fights against lesser foes and isn't even considered the top prospect in his family.
Officially, Walsh improved to 15-0 in his Las Vegas debut, giving him wins in four U.S. states (California, Massachusetts, New York and Nevada) in addition to a victory at the 3Arena, in Dublin, Ireland last September. All but one of his previous 14 bouts had appeared as featured content on UFC Fight Pass.
Loser: Fit to Be Tied
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Sometimes a fight's just too good for a guy to lose.
That was apparently the case for the main-card bout between super middleweight challengers in waiting Christian Mbilli and Lester Martinez, who gave their interpretation of nose-to-nose, phone-booth combat on the way to a grueling 10-round draw.
The official result allows both men to maintain their 0's in the loss column—with Mbilli now standing at 29-0-1 and Martinez at 19-0-1—but it stalls the pitches they were making at a date with Alvarez, given that a rematch between them might be next on the agenda.
A Cameroonian now based in Montreal, Mbilli is the WBC's "interim" belt-holder at 168 pounds, which is that organization's way of saying he's the No. 1 contender to Alvarez while simultaneously being able to siphon part of his fight purse to sanction a "title" fight.
Martinez, aiming to become the first world champion from Guatemala, arrived ranked third by the WBA and 15th by the WBO—whose belts Alvarez also holds—in addition to No. 7 by the WBC.
Prolonged inside exchanges were the order of the day from Round 1, with Mbilli controlling the early going with his superior physicality before Martinez rallied late after starting to use subtle foot movement to create space to land shots from distance.
One judge gave him seven of 10 rounds, and another had it 6-4 in Mbilli's direction, but Glenn Feldman's 5-5 card settled matters and locked in the three-way split draw.
B/R had it 5-4 heading to the 10th but gave the finale to Mbilli for a 96-94 nod.
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Winner: Kids Are All Right
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They may or may not wind up as champions. But if nothing else, the youngsters who warranted spots on Saturday's big card will certainly be getting more chances.
Saudi lightweights Mohammed Alakel and Sultan Almohammed—crossing over to the U.S. at the ages of 21 and 17, respectively—preserved pristine records with victories over willing but outgunned opponents Travis Carwford and Martin Caraballo.
Alakel won his sixth straight and went past six rounds for the first time for a 10-round decision over an 11-fight veteran in Crawford, while Almohammed debuted with a four-round nod over Martin Caraballo, who'd made his own debut in April.
Both were outshone, though, by 23-year-old Japanese slugger Reito Tsutsumi, who sent Javier Martinez to an early shower with a TKO after just 2:18 of the first round.
Tsutsumi now has two KOs in his three wins, while Martinez, a 29-year-old Texan, started his career 7-0 but has since lost three in a row.
"He didn't have time to think. He didn't have time to use his experience," Ward said. "He got blitzed."
Winner: Familiarity Breeds Combat
5 of 10
Some guys are just made for each other.
Muhammad Ali had Joe Frazier. Arturo Gatti had Micky Ward. And on a lower-profile level, these days, Serhii Bohachuk has Brandon Adams.
The California-based rivals followed a lively 2021 scrap with an even better one on Saturday night, engaging one another in 10 rounds of close-quarters combat that ended with Adams winning by a unanimous decision in the preliminary card's feature bout.
It was a second straight win in the series but an upset in perception for Adams, who rallied to stop Bohachuk in Round 8 the first time but was the B-side this time to a fighter ranked in the top five by three of the four most significant sanctioning bodies.
That didn't matter to the rugged 36-year-old, whose career has been frequently sidetracked by managerial and promotional issues. In fact, he'd only fought three times since that first matchup, including a 37-month absence in its immediate aftermath.
He ripped Bohachuk hard to the body in the first round and never let up, producing a higher work rate throughout and landing the more impactful blows while winning eight of 10 rounds on two scorecards and nine of 10 on the third.
B/R's W/L card sat with the majority, also giving Adams a 98-92 margin.
"It's not just brutality. It's brutality with nuance. It looks like these two watched Corrales-Castillo before they came out here," analyst Max Kellerman said. "We've got to talk to Dana about a BMF belt for boxing. This has been the BMF fight of the night so far."
Loser: Disappointing the Boss
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It's not a good sign when the money man looks bored.
But as the rounds piled up and big men Jermaine Franklin and Ivan Dychko repeated their jab-jab-grab routine, Turki Al-Sheikh's poses at ringside spoke volumes.
First, the Saudi promoter spent several minutes staring with crossed arms as boos rained down from a still-cavernous football stadium. Then, he leaned back with his arms dangling over the adjoining seats, looking ready to pull the plug on the night's first dud.
But the kill switch was never thrown, leaving viewers to endure the full extent of a desultory 10-rounder that ended, mercifully, with Franklin a dubious winner by unanimous decision that seemed as ridiculous as it was dull.
The good news? Neither is likely to occupy space on a Riyadh Season card again. In fact, if anyone returns, it might be each fighter's corner team members, who were far more entertaining between rounds than their combatants were during them.
"Both corners are animated and urgent, but the fighters are not," Kellerman said. "It ain't good when the corner is the most interesting part of the fight."
Winner: Justifying the Hype
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It wasn't a Canelo-Crawford buzz, but Marco Verde did arrive at Allegiant Stadium with some fanfare on Saturday afternoon. And for those wondering, you can consider it justified.
The 23-year-old was a silver medalist at the 2024 Olympics and he's parlayed that success into the paid ranks so far, climbing to 3-0 with a TKO of 37-year-old veteran Sona Akele at 1:11 of Round 4 of their scheduled six-rounder.
It was his second early exit in three fights.
Akele was rescued on his feet by referee Mark Nelson, but the beaten man complained loudly about the finish, yelling "Oh, my God" several times with a few obscenities mixed in for good measure.
Ward, though, had the official's back.
"The ref did his job," he said. "You don't check with the fighter to see if he's OK because if he's a real fighter, he's gonna answer the right way."
Loser: Backing the Blue
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One fight after Ward and Kellerman backed a referee's decision to end a fight with a beaten man still on his feet, they simultaneously changed their tunes.
The former HBO colleagues immediately chastised Robert Hoyle's wave-off of the super middleweight bout, which pitted Cuban import Raiko Santana against Crawford training partner Steven Nelson. The bout ended at 2:38 when Nelson was on the wrong end of a first-round combination, leaving him sagging along the ropes.
Seconds after yelling "You've got to show me something" to the stricken fighter, Hoyle stepped in as Nelson stumbled backward. Ward said Hoyle looked "confused" by the situation and should have labeled the support by the ropes as a knockdown rather than allowing the sequence to be decisive.
"That's a very good call to stop the action for a knockdown," Kellerman said, "but a very bad stoppage for the fight."
Santana, who improved to 13-4 and scored seventh KO, disagreed.
"I think it was good. It looked like he was damaged," Santana said. "This is the win that was missing for me. I wanted to show my work, and you saw the result."
Winner: Everything Old Is New Again
9 of 10
Sometimes you don't know how much someone's missed until they return.
That was instantly the case with Ward and Kellerman, who rode shotgun to Jim Lampley at HBO and were back together Saturday night alongside veteran UFC mic man Jon Anik at ringside.
The tuxedoed analysts provided a controlled, intellectual fresh air in place of Mike Coppinger and Antonio Tarver, who'd led the cheers from their perch at a Riyadh Season event earlier this year but were relegated to panel hosting this time alongside Mario Lopez and Mark Kriegel.
Ward and Kellerman did sip the promotional Kool-Aid while gushing about the event and the quality of the prelims, but also added a necessary element of smart, objective critique, particularly when discussing the aforementioned referee interventions and breaking down the nuances of the Adams-Bohachuk brawl.
And Anik was no slouch himself in a new environment, carrying his smooth, articulate delivery from cage-side along with Heidi Androl, who replicated her UFC role with backstage news and feature hits.
Full Card Results
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Main Card
Terence Crawford def. Canelo Alvarez by unanimous decision (116-112, 115-113, 115-113)
Callum Walsh def. Fernando Vargas Jr. by unanimous decision (99-91, 99-91, 100-90)
Christian Mbilli drew with Lester Martinez by split decision (93-97, 96-94, 95-95)
Mohammed Alakel def. Travis Crawford by unanimous decision (99-91, 99-91, 98-92)
Preliminary Card
Brandon Adams def. Serhii Bohachuk by unanimous decision (99-91, 98-92, 98-92)
Ivan Dychko vs Jermaine Franklin Jr. def. Ivan Dychko by unanimous decision (96-93, 95-94, 97-92)
Reito Tsutsumi def. Javier Martinez by TKO, 2:18, Round 1
Sultan Almohammed def. Martin Caraballo by unanimous decision (40-36, 40-36, 40-36)
Raiko Santana def. Steven Nelson by TKO, 2:38, Round 1
Marco Verde def. Sona Akale by TKO, 1:11, Round 4
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