Álvarez and Crawford face off in breathless blockbuster destined to break records

Las Vegas has staged its share of blockbuster fight nights but nothing on the scale of what is coming this weekend. On Saturday night at Allegiant Stadium, the $2bn (£1.47bn) home of the NFL’s Raiders, Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez will defend his undisputed super-middleweight crown against Terence Crawford in front of more than 70,000 spectators, by far the largest boxing crowd the city has ever seen.

Millions more will watch on Netflix, which is carrying the card at no extra cost to subscribers – a first for a fight of this magnitude and a reminder of how the business of boxing is being remade in real time. For decades, the sport depended on pay-per-view. Now it is betting that reach and spectacle can replace a buckling model. The timing is no accident: Mexican Independence Day weekend, when this neon-lit metropolis in the Mojave desert becomes a second home for Álvarez and his flag-draped supporters.

Yet, for a main event of this quality and consequence, the mood around town during fight week has been oddly sedate. Thursday’s final press conference at the T-Mobile Arena was open to the public but drew little more than a thousand fans. It’s expected the crowds will arrive en masse on Friday and the live gate will be eye-watering in the end, but ticket sales have been on the sluggish side, prompting whispers of the Trump slump that has affected local tourism. The likelier theory is that while most of boxing’s more recent super-fights have required years of wrangling – Mayweather v Pacquiao, Álvarez v Golovkin, Crawford v Spence – this one materialized practically overnight. A year ago, Álvarez v Crawford was more a bar-room flight of fancy than plausible matchup given the weight gulf. Now, suddenly, here it is.

Álvarez, 35, is the emperor at 168lb: granite-chinned, a four-weight champion from 154 to 175, boxing’s most bankable name. Crawford, 37, is America’s best fighter since Floyd Mayweather Jr, a champion in four divisions spanning 135 to 154 who has spent more than a decade making elite opponents look ordinary. The switch-hitting Nebraskan is the quiet craftsman who unified 140, then 147 with a dismantling of Errol Spence Jr so complete that it felt like a mismatch. That he hails from a fistic outpost better known for the production of corn than elite prize-fighters only lends to the lore.

Canelo Álvarez is boxing’s most bankable name and one of Mexico’s most recognizable faces. Photograph: David Becker/Getty Images for Netflix

This weekend also doubles as the maiden promotion of Zuffa Boxing under TKO Holdings, the company formed by the merger of UFC’s parent group and WWE. It is the first boxing show promoted by Dana White, backed by an ample Turki al-Sheikh investment, and seen as the opening salvo in an attempt to build a rival system of rankings and titles under Saudi control. Behind the scenes, that project is already colliding with Washington politics. A new Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act has been introduced in Congress, legislation critics say could gut longstanding protections for fighters and hand promoters the power to control titles. That a potential hostile takeover can hide in plain sight the way it has during the equivalent of boxing’s Super Bowl week is a testament to the allure of the main event. When one journalist did raise valid questions on the subject during Thursday’s press conference, White deftly parried before going ad hominem.

The oddsmakers have leaned toward Álvarez. He has campaigned at 168lb or above for nearly seven years, his chin stress-tested by heavier men. Crawford has spent most of his career at 147 or below, with only a brief reconnaissance at 154. Size matters, and so does age. Yet the intrigue lies in Crawford’s record of problem-solving. Time and again, he has spent the early rounds downloading an opponent’s rhythm before flipping the geometry in the middle of the fight. Against Spence two summers ago, Crawford produced a masterclass: three knockdowns and a ninth-round stoppage. Notably, the odds against him have shortened materially since the fight was announced in June.

For Álvarez, victory is legacy maintenance. He has already hoovered up titles across four weight classes, headlined stadiums in two countries and confirmed himself as the sport’s biggest star and one of Mexico’s most recognizable faces. Beating Crawford would add another bullet to the résumé and reaffirm his supremacy at 168. For Crawford, it is legacy transformation. He is already the first man in the four-belt era to become undisputed champion in two divisions, a feat since matched by Naoya Inoue and Oleksandr Usyk. A third, against Álvarez, on Netflix’s global platform and before the largest fight crowd in Las Vegas history, would vault him from generational talent into the all-time realm of lionhearted weight-jumpers like Harry Greb, Henry Armstrong, Roberto Durán and Manny Pacquiao.

Everything about this fight is oversized and breathless: the venue, stakes and TV audience. What happens inside the ropes on Saturday night, though, will come down to the smallest of margins: timing, angles, choices made in the blur of three-minute rounds. It’s in that public accounting where boxing, for all its bloat, still finds its purity.