(Photos: Stephanie Trapp/SHOWTIME) By Dan Ambrose: Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions says his fighter WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (41-0-1, 30 KO’s) has the chance to show the world that he’s not just a fighter that’s built up from hype, but is the real thing by beating WBA World junior middleweight champion Austin Trout (26-0, 14 KO’s) in their unification match next month on April 20th at the Alamodome, in San Antonio, Texas, USA.
De La Hoya said “This is an opportunity for Canelo to show everyone in boxing that he is the real deal…we don’t know who is going to win.”
True it is a chance for the red-haired Canelo to prove that he belongs at the top not because of how popular he is due to his Mexican fans, but rather because of what he actually does in the ring. If Canelo can beat Trout convincingly without controversy, then he belongs among the very best at 154.
Until then, you have to look at Canelo with a lot of doubt and suspicion due to the incredibly soft matchmaking that De La Hoya and Golden Boy has done for the 22-year-old Canelo over the years. Sadly, Canelo’s toughest fight of his career came against a shot 41-year-old Shane Mosley, and Canelo looked terrible in that fight.
Now he’s finally facing a legit junior middleweight in Austin Trout, who isn’t an over the hill fighter pulled up from the welterweight division to make Canelo look better than he is. Trout is the real deal. He’s a legitimate junior middleweight in the prime of his career, and not picked out because he’s faded enough to make an easy fight for Canelo.
De La Hoya obviously would like to see Canelo win because it’ll help Golden Boy to have him stay undefeated to continue moving forward to a possible fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. in the future. However, even if Canelo does get beaten by Trout, Canelo is young enough to where he can come back from the defeat.
Golden Boy will make sure there are no more slip ups if he loses to Trout, as they would carefully maneuver Canelo back to the top with another string of beatable fighters until he captures one of the titles, but obviously not the ones in the possession of Trout. Hopefully when/if Canelo does fight for another junior middleweight title in the future, Golden Boy doesn’t drag up another welterweight like Matthew Hatton for Canelo to fight for the 154 pound title like they did in 2011 because that just makes Canelo look non-legitimate. If they can’t even match him against a real junior middleweight then what does that tell you?
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