Terence Crawford dismisses Illia Topuria fight: “Nowhere near on the level of Conor McGregor”

Illia Topuria vs Terence Crawford is not looking promising

Just days after Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford’s (42-0, 31 KO’s) historic win over Saul Canelo Alvarez (63-3-2, 39 KO’s), speculation has exploded as to who his next opponent might be. 

The rumours are not helped by Brian ‘BoMac’ McIntyre choosing to keep his man’s future plans under wraps. However, his apparent feud with UFC star Illia Topuria hasn’t waned, and many are beginning to wonder if a crossover fight could be on the horizon for the pound-for-pound king. 

Unfortunately for the Topuria camp, Crawford doesn’t appear to be paying too much interest to the Spaniards' continuous verbal jabs and callouts. 

"To be honest, I've never even seen this dude fight," Crawford revealed in a recent interview with Ariel Helwani.

 "I ain't even going to lie. I'm not worried about that guy at all. It's crazy how things work. I ain't even know who he was. When he saw me at the UFC, he came up to shake my hand and say what's up to me. I ain't even know who he was, but then I see him online talking about how he'll knock me out in the first round and this and that. And now this. 

“Well, if you wanted to fight me, you had the opportunity to tell me like, 'Hey, man, I want to fight you. What's up?' That's fake.

"If I don't like somebody and I want to fight them for whatever reason, I would've been like, 'What's up, man? What do you think about me and you fighting?'

“I'm not going to hide behind the keyboard and things like that and be like, 'I'll knock this dude out and this and that.' I think that's fake."

Crawford continued, eventually appearing to knock the MMA star down a peg, stating that he is nowhere near the level of fellow UFC icon Conor McGregor - who famously squared off against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2017.

"For what? What money would I get out of fighting him? Tell me how much I'm going to get out of fighting him? Please.

"He's nowhere near on the level of Conor McGregor. Let's be real,” the three-weight champion stated.

“Stop it. Don't even compare him to Conor. Conor was here (up). He's here (down). Like I said, I don't know this guy. I've never seen this guy fight, and I watch a lot of MMA.

"Maybe I'm slipping. Maybe he's a good fighter. I don't know. But I've honestly never seen this guy fight. And I've seen Conor McGregor fight a lot of times. Just saying. Him and Conor, it's night and day. It's night and day. You know it's night and day. Don't ever try to say they're on the same level."