The WBO has granted Terence Crawford’s team a 10-day extension while they try to reach an agreement with Sebastian Fundora. If negotiations fail to produce results by October 10, a portfolio offer will be ordered.

As usual, the title situation is a bit misleading. Fundora won the WBO belt from Tim Tszyu. He also won the vacant WBC crown that night, almost two years after it was last officially defended by unified 154-pound king Jermell Charlo.

Meanwhile, Crawford moved up to 154 pounds in August, taking the WBA belt from Israil Madrimov along with the WBO interim super welterweight title. Now Crawford and Fundora hope to strike a deal that will unify their belt package.

Crawford’s rise is nothing brief of extraordinary. He is already the undisputed champion of two weight classes (four titles are needed to complete both fights), if he defeats Fundora, he will only have the IBF belt, which will be undisputed in three weight classes. Bakhram Murtazaliev currently holds this belt and will defend it on October 19 in a fight against Tim Tszyu. Crawford would be the favorite to win this competition. Suddenly, efforts to make history seem realistic.

Crawford has long been linked to a cross-weight clash with Canelo Alvarez. This would require Bud to jump several divisions or at least add weight in order to reach a catchweight agreement (which would favor Canelo).

The driving force behind the fight, however, was Saudi power broker Turki Alalshikh. Since “His Excellency” has since publicly fallen out with Canelo, it appears that the Canelo vs. Crawford has now dropped off the radar.

The perfect left hand that Peter McGrail drove into Brad Foster’s body last weekend couldn’t have been delivered at a better time.

The shot hit Foster in the worst possible place at the worst possible time and quickly ended the junior featherweight fight. Thanks to this, fans remembered at the right time what the 28-year-old Liverpool player is capable of.

McGrail was an outstanding amateur, and his talent was so great that fans quickly began to take his victories for granted. Last December’s shocking and sudden loss to relatively unknown Ja’Rico O’Quinn was a major shock.

In April, McGrail (10-1 (6 KO)) came back from defeat, defeating the arduous Marc Leach in comprehensive but understandably watchful fashion and needed an eye-catching result.

Foster is a former British and Commonwealth champion but – at least in terms of results – is in needy form.

The red “L”s on a fighter’s BoxRec page don’t leave much room for nuance and don’t do justice to how close Foster’s defeats were to Jason Cunningham and Rhys Edwards. No one even came close to doing what McGrail did to him.

“I felt like it was on the cards, you know what I mean? He’s been hitting the body well in sparring lately, so that’s been good,” McGrail’s trainer Paul Stevenson told BoxingScene.

“It was always quite an uphill battle because he [Foster] he is good, has great weight and is powerful. He has good tactics. He’s astute and experienced and no one has ever done this to him before. And he was ready for it.

“Obviously this is the best type of finish you can get. All it takes is one shot and we go home in the second round against an opponent like that, because it could be a long night

“I don’t remember who it was now, but someone said he was sort of like what Liam Davies is now when they were supporting and pushing him a few years ago. And his losses were pretty close anyway, right?

In recent weeks, British and European champion Dennis McCann was cleared to defend both of his titles against McGrail.

Given McGrail’s amateur pedigree, the decision was quickly made to jump him through the world rankings, and he bypassed the burgeoning British scene and concentrated on climbing the WBA ladder.

Over the past few years, the outstanding Liam Davies has established himself as a top-10 player in the world at 122 pounds, while McCann has matured and begun to develop into the talent that many predicted he would be when he burst onto the scene as a teenager.

Suddenly, the prospect of facing British rivals became much more attractive to McGrail. Yes, domestic bragging rights would be at stake, but the fights with Davies and McCann would now have global ramifications as well.

“With the Riyadh season you can pay them accordingly, so it makes sense for everyone. Well, certainly for us,” Stevenson said.

“You can go on the British route and you can have really difficult fights to the death for a slight rise in the world rankings, and I just never really liked that route unless you had a boy who you were sure that was his limit.

“With Nick [Ball, the WBA featherweight champion]We didn’t even care about it. We just shot up the WBC rankings.

“But like I said, I think out of the guys you mentioned, we have the best kid in Pete, so the one who will give Pete the best development and the best finances is him.”

As Stevenson mentioned, Riyadh Season is the place to be, and the fight between McGrail – repped by Matchroom – and Queensberry’s McCann looks to be a chance for the second installment of the 5v5 series, pitting fighters from promotional giants against each other.

McGrail’s team is certainly interested.

“I don’t think they want that. “I think he made a bit of noise because Pete didn’t smoke in his last fight and he got beat in his last fight and he probably thinks it’s the right time for him,” Stevenson said. – But of course when he saw her do it [to Foster]now Dennis McCann makes different sounds.

“It’s up to them. We’re doing our thing anyway, so if it’s not them, it’ll be someone else, and if not the Saudi, it’ll be somewhere else, but we’ll just keep making progress and Pete can be world champion for 18 or even 12 months from now. Just see what happens.