OK, now that some basic philosophies and rules have been established, we can begin debating who goes on boxing’s Mt. Rushmore.

The starting point is obvious. Muhammad Ali is undeniable. He checks every imaginable box, as the most famous fighter ever, an all-time pound-for-pound great, and probably the No. 1 heavyweight in history (and at worst No. 2).

Ali is the face of boxing. So his face must be on boxing’s Mt. Rushmore.

Beyond Ali, I believe there are 12 fighters for whom some sort of legitimate case for inclusion can be made. Those 12, listed alphabetically: Henry Armstrong, Julio Cesar Chavez Snr, Jack Dempsey, Roberto Duran, Jack Johnson, Sugar Ray Leonard, Joe Louis, Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao, Sugar Ray Robinson, John L. Sullivan and Mike Tyson.

For me, the nearest thing to a “must” after Ali is Robinson. He’s the greatest pound-for-pound fighter of all-time (sorry if this reality decreases the resale value of your “TBE” hats, Floyd fans); he guarantees that we won’t have an all-heavyweight Mt. Rushmore; he’s a stand-in for both the legendary punchers and the legendary boxers; and he represents the two most historically significant and popular non-heavyweight classes, middleweight and welterweight.

Two down, two to go. Now it starts getting tricky.

In a perfect world, we’d fill out our foursome with both someone from the pre-Robinson era and someone from the post-Ali era.

For the former, we can cross off 1930s and ’40s pound-for-pounder Armstrong, since we already have 1940s and ’50s pound-for-pounder Robinson.

That leaves us with four heavyweights – listed chronologically, they’re Sullivan, Johnson, Dempsey and Louis.

Sullivan is easy enough to ditch. Yes, he’s the George Washington here, the first recognized heavyweight champ of the gloved era, but he’s rarely ranked these days among anyone’s top 10 heavyweight champs, and his pioneer status alone isn’t enough to overcome that.

Choosing between Johnson, Dempsey and Louis is brutal, as all three were pivotal cultural figures, men who meant as much to society as to fans of pugilism. I am very much open to the idea of a Mt. Rushmore that includes two of them and cuts out everyone post-Ali.

But if I’m insisting on including one boxer from the past 45 years and thus can only pick one among this trio, I think I lean Dempsey for his popularity in his time, for the fact that he ruled the sport when boxing was part of a Big Three with baseball and horse racing and is basically boxing’s Babe Ruth – and you wouldn’t ever fashion a baseball Mt. Rushmore without Ruth.

And if you want to accuse me of letting skin color factor in my decision, that’s fine, I won’t deny it. Again, variety is important in a boxing Mt. Rushmore – variety across eras, across weight divisions, and across races, too. Consider the beloved white heavyweight champ from a century ago my DEI pick.

Now for the post-Ali options. Chronologically, they’re Duran, Leonard, Tyson, Chavez, Mayweather and Pacquiao.

Tyson is probably easiest to remove from consideration. Like Sullivan, his standing among the true heavyweight greats is shaky. If it’s a Mt. Rushmore of the biggest stars across boxing’s history, “Iron Mike” is the proper post-Ali selection. But that’s not quite the monument we’re constructing here.

Duran, Chavez and Pacquiao are all worth considering for a common reason: to prevent this Mt. Rushmore from being exclusively American. If we can get a Panamanian, a Mexican or a Filipino on there, that achieves another sliver of variety.

Clearly that mattered to our friends at The Ring recently when they created a Mt. Rushmore graphic for social media and made sure to represent either Mexico with Chavez or Bulgaria with Kubrat Pulev.

(Seriously, that second face from the left should not enhance anyone’s faith in the capabilities of AI illustrators. Also, a Mt. Rushmore that fails to offer proof that boxing existed before 1960 is probably not the ideal collection.)

There are cases to be made for Duran, Leonard, Chavez, Mayweather or Pacquiao as the non-heavyweight representative of the last half-century or so, but in the end, I’m going to fail to achieve the goal of variety of nationalities, and I’ll make Mayweather my fourth.

He is probably not quite the most accomplished of the five, in terms of in-ring resume. But he’s the most successful boxer ever, when factoring in money earned (the most ever), losses suffered (none), and physical health upon exit (pristine, as far as anyone can tell). “Money May” is the most famous fighter post-Tyson and, on account of both his craftsmanship and his salesmanship, the face of modern boxing.

So there’s my Mt. Rushmore: Ali, Robinson, Dempsey and Mayweather. But I certainly won’t object to someone preferring to replace Dempsey with Louis or Johnson, and Mayweather with a non-American like Pacquiao or Duran.

Whatever the case, this exercise should illustrate how far away Crawford is from not only making boxing’s Mt. Rushmore, but even warranting consideration for it.

If he beats Canelo in September – a magnificent accomplishment, to be sure – that gives Bud a grand total of one victory over guaranteed future Hall of Famers. (To go with just one over a probable Hall of Famer in Errol Spence Jnr.) And for all his success consolidating belts across numerous weight classes, it’s hard to compare his accomplishments or star power to the likes of Pacquiao, Leonard, Duran or Chavez – never mind Mayweather.

Again, if we’re talking about the Mt. Rushmore of boxing in the 2000s, that’s Mayweather, Pacquiao, and probably two from the trio of Canelo, Oleksandr Usyk and Bernard Hopkins. So if Crawford beats Alvarez, he enters that conversation.

And if we’re talking about the Mt. Rushmore of American boxing in the 2000s, Crawford is probably already there, along with Mayweather, Hopkins and perhaps Andre Ward. (There’s a case for Roy Jones Jnr or Oscar De La Hoya, but both were in their primes in the 1990s.)

Crawford didn’t get that granular with his proclamation, however.

He said when he beats Alvarez, he’s “on Mt. Rushmore.”

Bud is well within his rights to say that, in order to promote himself and his upcoming fight. But if he actually believes it’s true, well, I’m sure there’s an Omaha sports radio station that will listen to him plead his case, but I’m going to turn the dial to something else.