MASTER CLASS
but has also faced criticism that he’s fighting less than ideal opposition and not dispatching them as easily as he did in the past. Witness John Ryder, Edgar Berlanga and William Scull all going the distance with him. But although he hasn’t closed the show lately, he has won clearly – the possible exception being Scull. In Canelo’s defense, it takes two to make a fight, and what happened during the Scull fight in May of this year is a particular sore spot with Alvarez. “You know what, I have a lot of really good fights, but I think the most complicated is with this fucker William Scull, who never fought. It’s very difficult to fight with somebody who doesn’t want to fight.” Scull certainly didn’t want to fight, but Alvarez couldn’t figure out this puzzling foe, either, with the result being a bout that set a CompuBox record for fewest combined punches thrown in a 12-round fight: 445. The silver lining was that Alvarez regained the IBF belt he was stripped of for fighting Berlanga. Regardless of this accomplishment, the vultures truly came out after that bout in Riyadh, many of them opining that Alvarez himself is ripe for the picking by Crawford, who can be slick enough to give the champion trouble if he sticks to that game plan and doesn’t engage in a firefight. Then again, that was perceived to be the case when Alvarez battled Jermell Charlo in September 2023. Canelo had settled his business with Golovkin, impressively defeating him via unanimous decision in their third fight, and after that was a homecoming win in Guadalajara over the game but overmatched Ryder. Charlo, 35-1-1 entering the bout at T-Mobile Arena, was expected to force Alvarez to dig into his bag of tricks. Again, it didn’t happen. The fight wasn’t close, and Alvarez cruised to a near-shutout win, dropping the reigning 154-pound champ in the process. It was
the same story eight months later when he showed Jaime Munguia that there are indeed levels to the game. Unlike some recent Alvarez foes, Munguia showed up to fight and win, but the champion was a step ahead and a level above. When Alvarez has a test in front of him, he will rise to the occasion. “Fight” like Scull or show too much respect to Alvarez like Berlanga did, and he will get the win, pick up his paycheck and move on. Terence Crawford is a test, and Alvarez is already amped up about the September showdown. It’s why, at the age of 35, with more money than he could ever spend and already in the conversation for greatest Mexican boxer of all time, he still wants to do this. He still wants to add to his legacy against another one of this era’s best. “I love boxing,” said Alvarez. “I love what I do, and I always want to go in the ring and put out my best to win, because I’m a competitive person. That’s why I still enjoy what I do right now.” Is Alvarez the greatest super middleweight of all time? He’s got a case. He’s unbeaten in the division and is the only undisputed champion in the history of the weight class. He has defeated legitimate top-level competition along with the usual mandatories, and there’s never been a fight at 168 that he’s been in serious danger of losing. He also has a few years left in the tank at the elite level as he approaches his mid-30s. Perhaps the only thing missing is that divisional fight that captures the imagination of fans around the globe. Ward had the Super Six tournament, Calzaghe had Jeff Lacy, Jones had James Toney, Eubank and Nigel Benn had each other, and Steve Collins had Eubank and Benn at the end of their careers. Is Crawford that fighter for Alvarez? For the “Bud” doubters, Mosley suffered no ill effects moving up from lightweight to welterweight to fight and beat Oscar De La Hoya in 2000. Special fighters do special things. Crawford is a special fighter. But so is Alvarez.
THE GREATS AT 168 (IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER)
SAUL “CANELO” ALVAREZ RECORD: 63-2-2 (39 KOs) TITLES WON: Ring, IBF, WBA, WBC, WBO
CHRIS EUBANK RECORD: 45-5-2 (23 KOs) TITLES WON: WBO
SVEN OTTKE RECORD: 34-0 (6 KOs) TITLES WON: IBF, WBA
The Caleb Plant triumph was arguably Canelo ’ s best showing at 168.
“I think I gained more power in 168 because I didn’t need to cut so much weight, and I felt stronger there,” said Alvarez. When asked if he lost anything with the move, he replied: “Maybe my moves a little bit with my feet, but I don’t think [I lost] that much. I feel great at 168.” Oddly enough, in 2019, he went back to middleweight to retain his Ring, WBA and WBC titles and win the IBF crown against Daniel Jacobs, then went up to light heavyweight to win a WBO belt with a brutal 11th-round stoppage of Sergey Kovalev. But, as 2020 dawned, he settled in at super middleweight. A near-shutout of unbeaten Brit Callum Smith was his lone fight of the pandemic-stricken year, but it earned him the Ring/WBA/WBC championship. Then it was back to business as usual in 2021, as he stayed busy with three fights, hitting that mark for the first time in 10 years. Alvarez got a mandatory defense out of the way in a February 2021 mismatch, blasting out Avni Yildirim in three rounds, but he was frighteningly good in back-to-back stoppages of Billy Joe Saunders (TKO 8) and Caleb Plant (TKO 11), owners of a combined 51-0 record heading into the bouts. Saunders donated the WBO belt to Canelo’s
CHONG-PAL PARK RECORD: 46-5-1 (39 KOs) TITLES WON: IBF, WBA
CARL FROCH* RECORD: 33-2 (24 KOs) TITLES WON: IBF, WBA, WBC
collection, and the Plant fight made Alvarez the first undisputed champion in the history of the super middleweight division after he took the Tennessee native’s IBF title and showed that while the contenders to the crown were good, he was simply better. On top of the world, Alvarez was hungry for another move, this time to cruiserweight. Conversely, some would say Canelo got greedy when it was proposed that he could challenge a ripe-for-the-picking cruiserweight titleholder in Ilunga Makabu. That fight didn’t materialize, but one did with light heavyweight titleholder Dmitry Bivol in May 2022, and it may have revealed Alvarez’s ceiling. A steel- chinned technician who wasn’t flustered by Alvarez’s forward motion, Bivol controlled the distance, outworked and outboxed him over 12 rounds to win a unanimous decision. After that stinging defeat, Alvarez’s first since he lost to Mayweather in 2013, he returned to 168 pounds and has won six in a row. In the process, he’s been winning cleanly and clearly,
NIGEL BENN RECORD: 42-5-1 (35 KOs) TITLES WON: WBC
JAMES TONEY* RECORD: 77-10-3 (47 KOs) TITLES WON: IBF
ROY JONES JR.* RECORD: 66-10 (47 KOs) TITLES WON: IBF
JOE CALZAGHE* RECORD: 46-0 (32 KOs) TITLES WON: Ring, IBF, WBA, WBC, WBO (not held simultaneously)
ANDRE WARD* RECORD: 32-0 (16 KOs) TITLES WON: Ring, WBA, WBC
MIKKEL KESSLER RECORD: 46-3 (35 KOs) TITLES WON: WBA, WBC
STEVE COLLINS RECORD: 36-3 (21 KOs) TITLES WON: WBO
*International Boxing Hall of Fame member
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