By Dan Ambrose: Harold Lederman, HBO’s unofficial ringside scorer, believes that WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (41-0-1, 31 KO’s) will make easy work of WBA junior middleweight champion Austin Trout (26-0, 14 KO’s).
Lederman thinks the 22-year-old Canelo will be too strong for the more experienced and arguably more talented Trout in their fight at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. It doesn’t matter that Canelo has never beaten anyone that you could call remotely good or that he’s looked flat-footed and one-paced in many of his fights. Lederman still thinks Canelo will win.
Speaking with Hustleboss.com, Lederman said “I hate to say this, but I think Canelo’s going to destroy him. I like Austin Trout, I like Greg Cohen, I like the whole team; but Canelo’s something special. He really is… Canelo is a star.”
Lederman also thought that Monte Barrett would beat Wladimir Klitschko. That right there is enough for me to permanently ignore all future Lederman predictions because anyone with two eyes could see that Barrett didn’t stand a chance against Wladimir, and yet Lederman thought Barrett would be too tough for him.
I don’t really get the part where Lederman is calling Canelo a star. Just what has Canelo accomplished to become a star? Was it his victories over welterweights Matthew Hatton, Lovemore N’dou, Carlos Baldomir, Kermit Cintron, Jose Miguel Cotto, Shane Mosley or was it Canelo’s win over light welterweight [140] Josesito Lopez.
If those wins were good enough to make Canelo a star in Lederman’s eyes then he’s really lowered the bar for what it takes to call a fighter a star. If that’s all it takes than the boxing world is littered with stars because there are plenty of fighters that have easy wins over guys from divisions below them and who have faced a real quality before.
As far as I can tell, Canelo has gotten to the top by being popular in Mexico more than what he’s actually accomplished in the ring, if that makes sense. If Canelo can beat Austin Trout on April 20th, then you can say that Canelo has finally beaten someone of quality, but you still can’t call him a real star.
A victory over Trout would be Canelo’s fist meaningful win of his career and he would have to rack up a lot more legit victories over guys from his own weight class – and not the welterweight division – for him to be a legit guy.
Right now, Canelo is just a guy that’s real popular in Mexico and who his promoters at Golden Boy has done a great job of matching him against guys from the divisions below him or old guys from the junior middleweight division.
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