Michael Chiesa hopes Ilia Topuria vs. Terence Crawford doesn’t materialize in boxing.
Topuria (17-0 MMA, 9-0 UFC) continued to call out Crawford (42-0 boxing) after Crawford defeated Canelo Alvarez this past Saturday to become undisputed champion in a third weight class. Topuria wants to follow in the footsteps of Conor McGregor, who made $100 million in a TKO loss to Floyd Mayweather in boxing in 2017.
Crawford didn’t seem interested after claiming he didn’t know who Topuria was, calling him incomparable to former UFC dual-champion McGregor. Chiesa appears to echo the same sentiment, but with a different perspective.
“Absolutely not,” Chiesa told MMA Junkie on wanting to see Topuria vs. Crawford. “We lost Conor McGregor after the Floyd Mayweather fight. That’s not the goal with Zuffa boxing. Essentially, that would be if we pulled Topuria up into that space, that would mean that that’s part of their MO. Look, anything could happen. Floyd is different from Crawford in the sense that – I’m not saying Crawford doesn’t know how to promote a fight, but Floyd was a master at that.
“He was good at taking jabs, poking fun, kind of selling his brand a little bit. ‘Bud’ sells his brand because he can downright fight. He’s just damn good, and Floyd was as well. And Ilia’s not a Conor. That was such a one of one type thing. That was peak Conor McGregor trash talk. That was the ultimate. That was so much fun, and I’m not saying Topuria is not fun, he just doesn’t have that sharp tongue like Conor had. To make that fight happen, it takes two fighters from two different worlds that are saying the things that gets everybody’s attention.”
After boxing Mayweather, McGregor would go 1-3 in his next four fights, with his lone win coming over a skidding Donald Cerrone in January 2020.
