Canelo Alvarez vs Terence Crawford ring walk time: schedule, TV start, and what to expect

Ring walk time, TV start, and the full fight-night schedule

Two undisputed champions, one giant NFL stadium, and a 14-pound leap in class. That’s what made Canelo Alvarez vs Terence Crawford the most talked-about boxing event of 2025. The fight was booked for Saturday, September 13, 2025, at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, the kind of stage boxing rarely secures in the United States. Tickets stretched from standard seats to VIP packages with behind-the-scenes access, and the whole show streamed worldwide on Netflix.

Here’s how the timeline stacked up for fans on the ground in Vegas. Parking lots opened at 12:30 p.m. local time, doors followed at 1:30 p.m., and the in-venue event began at 2:30 p.m. If you were watching from home, Netflix coverage started at 3:30 p.m. ET. The main card was slated for 8 p.m. ET, a familiar prime-time slot for a U.S. mega-fight.

The question everyone kept asking was the ring walk time. Promoters guided media to expect the headliners to make their walks around 11 p.m. ET, although a few outlets floated an earlier window. Realistically, with a big-card pace and the potential for longer undercard fights, the walks were always likely to land between 10:45 and 11:30 p.m. ET. In Pacific Time, that meant roughly 7:45 to 8:30 p.m. PT.

Time zone conversions made a late night for international viewers. In the UK, the expected ring walk window translated to about 4 a.m. BST on Sunday. Western and Central Europe were looking at roughly 5 a.m. CEST. In Riyadh, it lined up near 6 a.m. AST. For East Asia, it was a late morning: around 11 a.m. in Manila (PHT) and noon in Tokyo (JST). Australia’s east coast had a Sunday lunchtime viewing window at roughly 1 p.m. AEST.

Big fights slip. That’s boxing. Undercards can run long, walkouts can be delayed by production, and televised timing can adjust on the fly. If you planned around the main event, the safest move was to be ready 30–45 minutes before the estimated window.

For fans in Las Vegas, getting in and out took planning. Allegiant Stadium’s parking timed with doors, and the usual game-day traffic patterns applied—rideshare pickup zones, bag checks, and security screening queues tightened as the main card approached. If you arrived for the undercard, you had elbow room; show up an hour before the main event, and you were in a sea of people. On Location offered VIP packages with lounge entry, ringside photos, and even after-party access, a sign of how aggressively this event was built for the high-end fan.

One scheduling wrinkle underscored the scale here: Allegiant Stadium had to reshuffle a college football game to make way for the ring. Vegas doesn’t do small, and a stadium date on a fall weekend is prime real estate. Boxing only gets that slot when it promises more than a title defense. It has to promise a moment.

• Venue: Allegiant Stadium, Las Vegas, Nevada
• Date: Saturday, Sept. 13, 2025
• Doors open (local): 1:30 p.m. PT
• Event begins (local): 2:30 p.m. PT
• Netflix broadcast start: 3:30 p.m. ET (12:30 p.m. PT)
• Main card start: 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT)
• Main event ring walks: approx. 11 p.m. ET (8 p.m. PT), subject to change

For boxing’s rules nerds: this was a super-middleweight championship bout, so 168 pounds on the scale and standard 10-ounce gloves. Crawford jumped up two divisions from welterweight to make this happen. No catchweight was advertised; the stakes were Canelo’s undisputed 168-pound crowns.

Why this fight drew such a crowd: stakes, styles, and the business story

On paper, the stakes were obvious. Canelo Alvarez (63-2-2, 39 KOs) came in as the reigning, defending, undisputed super-middleweight champion, and he’d been on a six-fight run since his 2022 loss to Dmitry Bivol. Most recently, he outpointed William Scull on May 3 to reassert full control of the belts at 168. Across from him stood Terence Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs), unbeaten, a former undisputed champion at 140 and 147, and widely viewed as one of the best switch-hitters of this era.

Style-wise, this was risk on both sides. Canelo brings patient pressure, superb shot selection, and some of the most educated body punching in the sport. Crawford brings rhythm breaks, southpaw traps, and a mean streak in transitions. At welterweight, Crawford’s timing and finishing instincts made opponents fold late. At 168, the question was whether that snap would carry up against a champion built like a middle linebacker who has spent years bullying super middleweights.

The weight was the talking point all summer: a 14-pound jump for Crawford, the largest of his career. Moving up brings advantages and tradeoffs. You often gain durability, but you can lose a step in speed and fluidity. For Canelo, the opposite dilemma: he’d face a smaller man with faster hands, sharper counters, and a brain wired for adjustments. If Canelo couldn’t close distance reliably, he’d be reaching into the kind of firefight Crawford tends to win.

The fight didn’t just happen in a gym and a boardroom. It took a hard pivot in the spring after negotiations wobbled. Saudi promoter Turki Al-Sheikh paused talks in February when Alvarez reportedly looked at other options, including a social-media crossover fight. Once Alvarez inked a four-fight deal tied to Riyadh Season, the Crawford bout snapped back into place. That deal mattered. It created the financial spine for an event big enough to land a football stadium and a global streamer.

Enter the distribution shake-up. The fight was promoted by Dana White’s Zuffa Boxing under the TKO umbrella and streamed worldwide on Netflix. That’s a break from the old pay-per-view model that dominated boxing for decades. Netflix’s involvement meant a massive potential audience, a simpler sign-up process, and a new layer of production. It also raised a practical question: how do you pace a traditional boxing card for a streaming audience more used to binge shows and timed live specials? Saturday night gave us an answer—long on spectacle, tight on downtime, heavy on shoulder content.

All the theater leading in was part of the sell. The press tour wasn’t polite. Trash talk escalated, and face-offs got physical. Both sides knew what they were marketing: legacy. Canelo has spent the last decade chasing precisely these kinds of nights—names, belts, and stadiums. Crawford has chased the biggest available hill, and at 147 he climbed all of them. Beating the man at 168 would be a generational feather, the sort voters remember when Hall of Fame ballots come around.

For fans plotting their night, a few tried-and-true tips applied. If you were streaming, set notifications for the main card start, then back up your plans by 30 minutes in case an undercard fight ends early. If you were in the building, arrive two hours before the main card to clear security, find your seat, and soak in the walkouts and undercard pacing. If you traveled, keep an eye on late-night rideshare prices after the main event—rates spike when 50,000-plus people all reach for their phones at the same time.

Put simply, this was the kind of fight that breaks silos: a pound-for-pound king testing himself two divisions up against boxing’s most bankable champion, backed by new-money promoters and a streaming giant. The schedule, the staging, and the business story all pointed to the same thing—a one-night power play in a city built for them.