By Dan Ambrose: WBA junior middleweight champion Austin Trout may have looked sensational in beating former three division world champion Miguel Cotto, but that wasn’t enough for the Ring Magazine to put him at #1 in their rankings. Trout is at #3 behind #2 Saul Alvarez and #1 Floyd Mayweather Jr. The Ring magazine 154 pound title is currently vacant.
I think Trout is clearly a better fighter than the 22-year-old Canelo Alvarez, and I believe that Trout deserves the #2 spot.
As for Mayweather, I have a feeling we’ve seen the last of him at junior middleweight after the problems he had in beating Cotto last May. Mayweather took a lot of punishment in winning that fight and I don’t think he’ll want to fight someone like Alvarez or Trout, which are really the only guys that are worth fighting in the division.
Ring magazine did a poll asking who Canelo should fight next and Austin Trout was the number one choice at 43% compared to 34.8% for Mayweather, 12.5% for Cotto, 6.4% for James Kirkland, 1,7% for Carlos Molina and 1.6% for Cornelius Bundrage. Trout is seen as a legitimate junior middleweight by boxing fans rather than someone that just came up to the division to capture the title from Cotto.
Alvarez is counting on Golden Boy Promotions in getting him Mayweather on May 4th, but he’s got heavy competition from Robert Guerrero, a fellow Golden Boy fighter that Mayweather is reportedly interested in fighting. You have to figure that Mayweather will take the path of the least resistance because the Guerrero is a much easier fight than taking on the bigger, harder hitting Alvarez right now.
For Trout to get the number #1 spot he’s going to have to wait until Alvarez loses and Mayweather drops out of the division. I still have doubts that Golden Boy will let Trout fight Alvarez because he’s all wrong for him.
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