by Bob Smith: Of all of the fighters currently trying to move their way up the ranks and to obtain championships and big paydays (no particular order) two strike me as the most overrated: Tyson Fury and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
First, let’s start with one ‘”fighter” hopefully all of us can agree is overrated – Tyson Fury. To be fair, he is a respectable 2nd rate fighter with wins over Derek Chisora and Kevin Johnson but he is nowhere near the level of either his hype or his self-perceptions. In his match with Steve Cunningham he behaved like a WWE clown with his touching of the gloves and hitting after the bell and still got knocked down within three rounds by a glorified cruiserweight who is at least six inches shorter and at least 30 pounds lighter than him. Yes, he won the fight, but only by WWE rules – he held and hit worse than Robert Guerrero and turned it into a wrestling match. He would not last six rounds with either Klitschko, but not only that, he would lose easily also to Potevkin, Adamek, Haye, Pulev, and even Wilder, Arreola, Chagaev, Charr, and Wach. Basically, he is a glorified regional champion that will soon be knocked out and back to being a B class fighter – good in his region, but not considered world class.
And speaking of glorified regional fighters, let’s take one name-obsessed fighter with some substance, but mostly marketing strength. His only real victory I think was against Kermit Cintron, Shane Mosley was about 41 when he fought Canelo and this is the same Mosley who has not won since 2009. Canelo does specialize in fighting the brothers and cousins of elite fighters – name recognition but no difficulty – like Jose Cotto, Larry Mosley, and Matthew Hatton. He did better than I thought that he would do against Trout, but it was a much closer fight than the results would indicate, I had Trout winning by 2 or 3 points, if you don’t think so, then check the Compubox numbers, Trout outlanded Canelo in 7 of 12 rounds, neither fighter should have won or lost on the judges scorecards by more than three points.
Canelo would lose against ANY of the top 10 middleweights – his actual realistic weight when walking around and fighting and with water in his body – Martinez, Golovkin, Geale, Pirog, Quillin, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., Soliman, Sturm, Macklin, and Murray. Macklin or Murray would knock him out in eight rounds and he would
be completely outclassed by any of the other middleweights.
What Tyson Fury and Canelo Alvarez both have in common is that they are fighters that gain an unfair advantage over their opponents in my view. In some cases, they fight competitors with whom they have a height, weight, or soe other advantage; it is also why they have great hype machines and loyal fans but little substance. Not to worry, however, both of them will lose badly within a year or two, mainly because they believe their own propaganda, and then they can go back to being regional fighters dependent upon structural privilege – washed up, but where they belong.
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