Canelo-Mayweather: A modern day classic?

By Junito21 - 07/06/2013 - Comments

Floyd Mayweather(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Adrian Alvarez Jr.: September 14th has the chance to be a modern day classic and historic night with unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. (44-0, 26 KO’s) facing WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-0-1, 30 KO’s) in a battle of unbeatens at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. It’s already shaping up to be a great card with the possible addition of Danny Garcia vs. Lucas Matthysse as the co-main event.  

Over the years there have been many many classics as we all know, and if you look at the followings of the two fighters there are two fights you can compare this one to.

The first fight being Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. vs.  Meldrick Taylor I and the second fight being Oscar De La Hoya vs. “Sugar” Shane Mosley I, both absolute classics.  Going back to the following of the two fighters, we have Canelo who is without a doubt the biggest attraction in his fighting country of Mexico today. I’m not saying Canelo is as big as Chavez or De La Hoya was because he hasn’t fought the level of opposition they did yet, but he is still very young and has a lot of time to.  Will Canelo ever reach those heights?  He’s certainly on his way. However, this fight will have a big part to play in that and could be a speed bump.

We have Floyd “Money” Mayweather who is without a doubt the best pound for pound fighter in the sport today and most well-known American fighters in years, but with the two fights I mentioned it’s the opposite, Mosley (who Mayweather defeated) was once at the level of Floyd years ago but couldn’t stay the course, and Taylor could’ve easily ended up there and stayed for a while but his tough, controversial and eventually tragic fight with Chavez, which he should’ve won ruined the rest of his career and ended that.

The way these two fights mentioned definitely match up with this one are in their publicity and hype those two fights will always be great boxing classics and that’s what we’re hoping this will be. Can it be as good as those?  Yes.  Will it be?  Perhaps.  I personally see it going the full 12 rounds, as De La Hoya and Mosley did with the only possibility of a KO being for Canelo. That’s a stretch with Mayweather’s almost flawless defense.

For Mayweather I just can’t see him knocking Canelo out with his last KO coming six years ago against Ricky Hatton. Yes, I know he ko’d Victor Ortiz two years ago but had his hands been up and he’d been paying attention like he should’ve been it probably would’ve gone the distance. I can tell you this I don’t think it will end like Chavez and Taylor but the lovely thing about this sport or any sport for that matter is you can NEVER assume anything you can be pretty sure of who will win but you can’t just flat out assume. I am though hoping for the sport and for all of us fans that it turns out to be every bit the classic it’s shaping up and being made up to be.



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