By Dan Ambrose: Former three division world champion Shane Mosley believes that WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (41-0-1, 30 KO’s) can someday be as good as Floyd Mayweather Jr, Manny Pacquiao, Oscar De La Hoya and Miguel Cotto. Mosley was beaten by Alvarez earlier this year by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision in May, so it’s understandable why he’d be such a big supporter of the 22-year-old Alvarez.
Mosley said to ESPN, “I’ve fought Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao, Oscar De La Hoya, Miguel Cotto, and Canelo has the potential to be as good as anyone I’ve faced. He is definitely in the mix of talented fighters who are going to carry the sport for the next decade.”
Canelo is lagging behind those fighters in terms of the kind of opposition he’s faced. A big part of that is because of his promoters at Golden Boy, who don’t seem eager in putting him risky fights unless the fighters’ name is Floyd Mayweather Jr. Of course, that’s not a risky fight because Alvarez will get such a big payday in fighting Mayweather, in addition he’s got the excuse of his youth should he get beat.
Can Alvarez get to the level where De La Hoya, Pacquiao, Mayweather and Cotto are at? Well, he’s not going to be able to win as many titles as those guys because of his limited hand speed. De La Hoya, Pacquiao, Mosley and Mayweather were incredibly fast fighters in terms of hand speed from the beginnings of their careers.
Cotto wasn’t that fast, but he had the advantage that he started his career at light welterweight and was able to capture titles in three divisions. The 5’9” Canelo started out at welterweight, but he soon wasn’t able to make the weight and was never able to capture a world title in this weight class. If Canelo does find success, it’s pretty much going to be in only one division and that’s 154, one of the weakest divisions in the sport of boxing.
I don’t know that Canelo can become great if he’s beating the no names in this division because there’s just enough talent in this weight class for him to do much. Canelo is too short to move up to middleweight and super middleweight. If he does move up to those divisions, he’ll be like a weaker version of Arthur Abraham, because he doesn’t punch with the same power that Abraham does.
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