Sources - Terence Crawford to fight Israil Madrimov for title - ESPN

Terence Crawford, ESPN's No. 1 pound-for-pound boxer, will move up to 154 pounds to challenge Israil Madrimov for his WBA junior middleweight title Aug. 3 in Los Angeles, sources told ESPN.

The event will be presented by Riyadh Season under His Excellency Turki Alalshikh, the chair of Saudi Arabia's General Entertainment Authority in association with Sela Sport. There will be a news conference Wednesday in New York to announce the bout.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has made a major commitment to boxing since 2019, when it staged the Anthony Joshua-Andy Ruiz heavyweight championship rematch. The kingdom's interest in boxing grew exponentially when Alalshikh entered the fray last year with October's Tyson Fury-Francis Ngannou fight in the capital city of Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia went on to stage a December card featuring former heavyweight champions Joshua and Deontay Wilder, then a March fight between Joshua and Ngannou. The kingdom will present its two biggest fights yet over the next two months: the Fury-Oleksandr Usyk undisputed heavyweight championship bout May 18 and the Artur Beterbiev-Dmitry Bivol undisputed light heavyweight championship bout June 1.

Both of those fights will take place in Riyadh. Now, Saudi Arabian officials are branching out with their first boxing event outside of the kingdom with Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs) as he looks to become a four-division champion vs. Madrimov.

This event will be the first in partnership with Crawford, who is from Omaha, Nebraska. And it will be his first fight since his ninth-round TKO victory over Errol Spence in July to become the undisputed welterweight champion. Crawford, 36, will be making his 154-pound debut.

Madrimov (10-0-1, 7 KOs) won the WBA title when he scored a