THE BIRTH OF CANELO
sex appeal. “He raises and rides horses in Guadalajara,” she gushed. “That makes him attractive?” I asked. “Yes! He’s a good dancer, too,” she replied. “He can salsa, cumbia, merengue and rumba. And he’s a gentleman!” “Gotcha,” I shrugged. “If these female admirers show up to Staples Center, Golden Boy might actually have the crossover attraction they’ve been hyping.” Of course, for that to happen, Alvarez, who was now 20, would not only have to keep winning, he’d have to make statements in the ring. If he couldn’t “show out” against a 39-year-old Baldomir, he really was a hype job. Alvarez delivered, and he did it the best way a young fighter touted as “the future” could – via cold knockout. However, though he was the crowd favorite that night, the arena was quiet before he lowered the boom against the painfully slow Baldomir, who had rehydrated to 169 pounds. “I can’t say that he’s dazzled me,” Merchant said at the start of Round 6. With 10 seconds left in the round, Alvarez dropped Baldomir face down to the canvas off a crisp hook after stunning the veteran with right hands. Baldomir was counted out. The Mexican fans in attendance – which included a fair amount of women – were dazzled. It was Alvarez’s 11th knockout in his last 12 bouts. He was picking up steam. First world title bout Alvarez fought one more time in 2010, a 12-round decision over iron-chinned Lovemore Ndou. He weighed in at 149½ for that bout in Veracruz, Mexico, which was televised on Televisa and tape-delay broadcast on HBO in the U.S. Golden Boy wanted Alvarez to win a world title while he could still make 147, meaning his first bout of 2011, but the top two welterweights – pound-for- pound superstars Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. – were well out of his league. The second-tier candidates – fighters like Andre Berto, Victor Ortiz, Jan Zaveck and Vyacheslav Senchenko
– either already had commitments or were content to protect their belts in their homelands. It was Pacquiao’s 150-pound catchweight victory over Antonio Margarito for the vacant WBC 154-pound title (which, having made history, PacMan promptly vacated) that gave Golden Boy an idea: Why not have Alvarez do the same? He could win the junior middleweight title at a catchweight against a WBC-rated 147-pounder and thus position himself for a second title shot at welterweight. In stepped Matthew Hatton, the European welterweight champ who was No. 5 in the WBC’s 147-pound rankings. The gutsy older brother of Ricky Hatton was willing to travel from Manchester, England, to face Alvarez at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California, on March 5, 2011. That’s the business of boxing, and at a Tuesday media workout the week of the fight, it was clear to me that Alvarez was getting more involved in that side of the sport. Alvarez and the Reynosos were now promoting the Televisa cards he headlined. He proudly told me that they signed Nobuhiro Ishida, a junior middleweight/middleweight from Osaka, Japan, and were interested in signing other Japanese fighters to bring to Mexico. That seemed out of left field, but Alvarez explained that Japanese bantamweight Tomoki Kameda, who turned pro in Mexico, fought on two Televisa cards in Guadalajara in 2010 and did strong ratings. He reminded me that the Reynosos were no strangers to the Japanese boxing scene, having traveled there four times with Larios. Ishida was set to fight one of Alvarez’s older brothers, Rigoberto, the following month in Guadalajara. The 6-foot-2 slugger dropped a split decision to Rigo but would go on to blitz James Kirkland in the 2011 Upset of the Year before twice challenging for middleweight world titles vs. Dmitry Pirog and a bulldozer from Kazakhstan that Saul would get to know very well.
When asked about his first title bout, Alvarez said, “I’m not too young for this. I’m going to show America how mature I am.” He pooh-poohed anyone who pooh- poohed Hatton as his opponent. “Hatton is a warrior,” Alvarez said. “All fighters are dangerous once you step into the ring. ‘Easy’ guys can quickly become difficult if you underestimate them.” Wanting extra motivation for this pivotal bout, he told me he had been watching key fights from the careers of Ali, Chavez and Oscar De La Hoya. Alvarez wasn’t just observing their styles. He was watching how they carried themselves on the nights they faced their most formidable rivals. Ali vs. Liston, Frazier and Foreman. Chavez vs. Mayweather, Taylor and Whitaker. De La Hoya vs. Whitaker, Trinidad and Hopkins. Alvarez understood that you might not always win when you target the top dogs. “I’ve learned from them,” he said. “They all have styles worth emulating. They all accomplished so much. That inspires me. I want to surpass what they did.” Eric Gomez told me the plan was four fights in 2011. He brought up the mediocre welterweight beltholders, Zaveck and Senchenko, but he also mentioned newly minted WBA 154-pound titleholder Austin Trout. “He’s interested in fighting Trout, who just beat [Rigoberto Alvarez] for a title in Mexico. That’s a tough fight,” said Gomez, who added that was the type of matchup that would get Alvarez on HBO’s primetime flagship series, Championship Boxing . “We’ll see how he does on Saturday and see if HBO likes him.” The HBO brass didn’t like it when Alvarez missed the contracted 150-pound catchweight by a pound and a half, which reportedly cost him 30% of his purse. Alvarez seemed genuinely embarrassed and disappointed with himself at the weigh-in. I was disappointed with the result of the fight even though it was a near-
Alvarez survived a shaky first round against Jose Miguel Cotto (above) and rebounded to win by ninth-round TKO. Carlos Baldomir (below) was an easy target for Canelo, who dropped the Argentine veteran for the count in Round 6.
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