By Eric Thomas: Floyd Mayweather Jr. (44-0, 26 KO’s) gave his opponent for Saturday night WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-0-1, 30 KO’s) a back-handed compliment by saying that Canelo will wind up in the Hall of Fame one day, but only as statistic in being one of Mayweather’s victims.
Mayweather Jr. said “Someday Canelo will go down in the Hall of Fame, as one of the opponents I beat.”
Unless Canelo raises his game this Saturday night, he could very well end up as just another statistic on Mayweather’s eventual Hall of Fame stats.
Mayweather obviously doesn’t see Canelo as being a fighter that will end up in the Boxing Hall of Fame, and he’s already said as much by pointing out recently that he doesn’t see Canelo as the future of boxing. Mayweather Jr. thinks Canelo will be a star like he is now, but without taking the reins after he’s gone and being “The One” in boxing.
Mayweather Jr. is a pretty intelligent person, and so if he doesn’t believe that Canelo has the talent to be the fighter that carries boxing in the future, then he must be thinking of what will happen with Canelo once he’s forced to move up in weight to the middleweight and eventually the super middleweight divisions.
Right now Canelo will do well for a long time if he can stay at junior middleweight and fight guys from both the welterweight and junior middleweight divisions.
Canelo is in a situation where he can still gain a lot from the Mayweather Jr. fight even if he loses it. Just by giving Mayweather a hard time like Miguel Cotto did, Canelo will win fans, and Showtime will be pleased. What Canelo can’t afford is to get dominated by Mayweather or to end up doing something strange like Victor Ortiz did when he head-butted Mayweather when the fight started getting out of hand for him.
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