LAS VEGAS — Bob Arum would’ve dismissed the mere mention of Terence Crawford fighting Canelo Alvarez when Top Rank promoted the former.

Arum, 93, would’ve considered Crawford too small to challenge Alvarez for super middleweight supremacy when he was the WBO welterweight champion. Now that their once farfetched fight is imminent, Arum expects Crawford to beat Alvarez convincingly Saturday night at Allegiant Stadium.

Arum considers Crawford “a much, much better boxer” than Alvarez, who is much more accustomed to fighting at the super middleweight limit of 168 pounds.

The Top Rank founder also views Crawford’s capabilities as a completely ambidextrous boxer as an advantage that will confound Alvarez in a main event Netflix will stream to more than 300 million subscribers globally.

“I feel Crawford will win overwhelmingly,” Arum told The Ring. “I think it’s gonna be a very hard thing for Crawford to knock Canelo out because Canelo has a good chin and he’s a naturally bigger guy. But I think he can win overwhelmingly. And he may very well stop Canelo on cuts.”

Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs), who will turn 38 on September 28, will be three years older. Alvarez (63-2-2, 39 KOs) has more than twice as many rounds and 26 more professional fights, however, and Arum doesn’t view the first-ballot Hall-of-Famer as the same ferocious fighter who was ranked No. 1 pound-for-pound by The Ring in recent years.

“It’s a good fight, but the truth is you’re not fighting the old Canelo,” Arum said. “You’re fighting a shadow of what he used to be. The guy who fought his last fight against [William] Scull, that Canelo was not only beatable by Terence, but by certainly [David] Benavidez and probably [Christian] Mbilli and other fighters. To say he looked ordinary is giving him too much props. He’s definitely not the same.”

Alvarez beat Cuba’s Scull (23-1, 9 KOs) by unanimous decision May 3 to fully reunify the super middleweight championships in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The Guadalajara native endured scathing criticism for his apathetic approach to an absurdly reluctant Scull. Alvarez won by scores of 119-109, 116-112 and 115-113, but he threw only 152 punches, 12.7 per round, and combined with Scull to attempt the fewest punches in a 12-round fight (445) that CompuBox tracked in its 40-year history.

Arum’s assessment of Alvarez’s subpar performance against Scull aside, DraftKings still lists Alvarez as a slight favorite ahead of his fight with Crawford for his Ring, IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO 168-pound titles.

Crawford, a former undisputed junior welterweight and welterweight champ, moved up 14 pounds from junior middleweight for the biggest fight of his Hall-of-Fame career.

Crawford’s former promoter has had his differences with him since they parted ways following his 10th-round stoppage of Shawn Porter in November 2021. Through all of Crawford’s allegations and what Arum considered a frivolous lawsuit, he has always respected the ring prowess.

That’s why he senses the Omaha, Nebraska, native could defeat Alvarez so thoroughly that the proud Mexican might retire rather than seek a rematch.

“If Crawford beats him, unless it’s a very close kind of fight, I think Canelo will hang up the gloves,” Arum said. “He certainly has enough money. It depends on how he loses. If it’s a close fight, he’ll probably hang around for the money that the Saudis are obligated to pay him.

“But if he gets really overwhelmed by Crawford, I think he’ll hang it up because he’d really have no place to go. The Saudis aren’t gonna be hot to have him fight another Scull for a [expletive] of money.”