Will boxing fans respect Saul Alvarez if he ducks Austin Trout?

By Boxing News - 01/10/2013 - Comments

canelo45By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions has done a good job of building up red-headed WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez by making the right fights for him at the right time in his career. In other words, Canelo hasn’t been put in with the best at 154, such as Erislandy Lara, Austin Trout, and Vanes Martirosyan.

In fact, Canelo has only been in with one legit 154 pound fighter in Ryan Rhodes, and that guy was at the end of his career. Boxing fans want to see Canelo step it up against a guy from his own division in WBA junior middleweight champion Austin Trout, but that might not happen for reasons that are still unknown.

The question I have is will boxing fans respect Canelo if he doesn’t fight Trout and instead fights another welterweight? Will fans see Canelo as a ducker if he chooses not to fight Trout?

I have a feeling that Canelo will lose a lot of hardcore boxing fans if he chooses not to fight Trout next. I’m sure it won’t have any bearing on the casual boxing fans, though, because they don’t follow the sport enough to know who is who in the division.

Some of them know who Canelo is and all they’d care about is seeing him fight. With those types of fans, Golden Boy can probably keep trotting out 140 and 147 pound fighters to face Canelo until time immemorial and these fans won’t have a clue that Canelo is fighting guys smaller than him from lower weight classes. But for the hardcore boxing fans, I think Canelo is going to turn a lot of them if he doesn’t fight Trout soon like in his next fight.

How can you really respect him when he’s not fighting the guys that you figure he should be fighting? If the deal was that Canelo was supposed to fight the winner of the Trout vs. Miguel Cotto fight, but then he chooses not to fight Trout. What does that tell you?

If Canelo doesn’t fight Trout he’s going to look like he’s ducking him, and Golden Boy can only make it worse for him if they put him in with another welterweight for his next fight or some 40-year-old junior middleweight. Canelo 40-year-old welterweight Shane Mosley last year rather than someone from his own division that is still relevant. Mosley hasn’t won a fight in four years. Can believe that? Canelo fought a guy that was 40-years-old and hadn’t won a fight in four years. That’s pretty hard to imagine because there are tons of young junior middleweights that Canelo could have fought but didn’t, like Trout.



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