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Michael Chiesa is among those who doesn’t mind a boxing crossover between Jorge Masvidal and Canelo Alvarez.
There’s a 99.9% chance that we never see UFC contender Jorge Masvidal actually boxing Canelo Alvarez, but that isn’t stopping discussion around it.
UFC welterweight Michael Chiesa was recently interviewed by MMA Junkie, speaking in support of the crossover matchup between the two stars. In fact, he doesn’t see any issue with these boxing vs. MMA type bouts in general.
“Now, the things you can do with Jorge Masvidal, screw it, set up him in a boxing match,” Chiesa said. “Jorge is in a great position that he can be whatever he wants to be. If he wants to jump into the title fight after (UFC) 245 he can do that. If he wanted to get a boxing match with Canelo Alvarez, you could probably make it happen.
“People love these crossover fights, I don’t disagree with them at all. He’s in a good position, and Nate (Diaz) is, as well, and both guys deserve it.”
Masvidal has been pretty adamant about boxing Alvarez, who’s coming off a KO win over Sergey Kovalev to win the WBO light-heavyweight title. Unsurprisingly, Canelo really doesn’t care whatsoever and has plenty of actual top-level boxers he can face.
The obvious elephant in the room is this new, recent wave of MMA fighters wanting to box the best boxers in the sport (and the retired/not retired/retired/not retired again Floyd Mayweather) is the massive paydays they otherwise wouldn’t achieve in MMA. Conor McGregor is the gold standard given he secured the Mayweather bout in 2017, predictably losing by TKO but raking in tens of millions of dollars along the way.
The same night that Canelo beat Kovalev, Masvidal defeated Nate Diaz in the UFC 244 main event to win the “BMF” title. Count Chiesa among those who thinks this is perfectly fine.
“There’s a hundred different million weight classes in boxing. Like, who cares if we make up a title for one of the biggest events we’ve had in the last five years. Like, they deserve all that [payday] and then some.”
Chiesa, who fought Masvidal in 2013 and scored an early knockdown before losing by d’arce choke, is slated to fight Rafael dos Anjos at UFC Raleigh on January 25th.