By Dan Ambrose: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KOs) will be fighting for the third consecutive time at a 155 pound catch-weight when he faces James Kirkland (32-1, 28 KOs) on May 9th at the Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas.
Despite this being his third straight fight at what is technically a new 155 pound class that he’s been fighting at, Canelo is saying that he can still 154 and that he doesn’t want to move up in weight to fight at middleweight.
The middleweight division goes from 155 to 160 pounds, so Canelo has been fighting as a middleweight, not as a junior middleweight in his last two fights.
“No, I still feel comfortable and can still make the weight,” Canelo said about him staying at 154.
By staying at 154 and fighting at catch-weights of 155, it suggests that Canelo can’t make the junior middleweight weight limit anymore, because otherwise he would. Fighting at junior middleweight instead of middleweight virtually assures Canelo that he’ll frequently have a huge weight advantage over his junior middleweight and in some cases welterweight opposition. So in other words, why should Canelo move up to middleweight and fight guys his own size when he can stay at 155 and enjoy a significant weight advantage over a lot of his opponents.
I think more boxing fans would buy what Canelo says about him still being able to make the junior middleweight limit at 154 if Canelo was actually making the weight instead of fighting at his new 155 pound weight class.
Canelo makes weight at 155, but then rehydrates to the 170s, which makes him a light heavyweight. Some boxing fans don’t understand why Canelo simply doesn’t stop resisting the move up to 160, and simply move up and campaign as a middleweight.
Some fans think Canelo wants not part of fighting WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, who Canelo would be pressured to fight once he moved up to 160. These fans think the 24-year-old Canelo is waiting out the 32-year-old Golovkin until he’s aged to the point where he can be beaten. These fans think Canelo would then finally move up to 160 and immediately challenge aged Golovkin, who by then would likely be nearing 40, and not even close to being the same fighter he once was.
Canelo’s fans believe that he shouldn’t have to fight Golovkin until he officially moves up in weight to the 160 pound division, but what Canelo’s don’t understand is that the 155 pound weight class that Canelo has carved out for himself recently is technically at middleweight. It falls in the middleweight range of 155 to 160.
So if Canelo is fighting at middleweight now for his third straight time, then why isn’t he fighting Golokvin instead of James Kirkland? Golovkin beat a fighter who knocked Kirkland out in one round in 2011 in Nobuhiro Ishida.
Canelo’s fans don’t realize that he rehydrates to basically the same weight as Golovkin does, which is why a lot of boxing fans don’t think he’s being asked a lot to agree to fight the Kazakhstan fighter. It’s not like Canelo is being asked to fight someone heavier than himself. He’s being asked to fight someone that he weighs the same as.
It’s unclear why Canelo is no longer trying to capture any of the junior middleweight titles. Canelo could have fought his last opponent Erislandy Lara for his WBA junior middleweight title last July, and captured the title after Canelo was given a controversial 12 round split decision victory.
Some fans think the reason why Canelo isn’t showing interest in winning any of the junior middleweight titles is because he would then be in a position where he’d be pressured or would be forced to fight the Charlo brothers or someone like Demetrius Andrade, and those guys are tall and are excellent boxers.
To be sure, Canelo would have a tough time beating the Charlo brothers and Andrade. But by not winning any of the junior middleweight titles, Canelo is free from having to fight those guys.
If Canelo moves up to middleweight, he’ll be pressured big time to fight Golovkin, and that’s a fight that Canelo doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to take. He wants the 5’7”, 34-year-old Miguel Cotto, but he doesn’t seem like he’s really interested at all in fighting Golovkin.
I don’t know why Canelo doesn’t come out admit that he’s already fighting at middleweight given that he’s fighting at 155. That seems to me that Canelo is now a middleweight and not a junior middleweight. It is strange how he keeps saying he’s a junior middleweight when he’s fighting at middleweight. If he can stay at 154, then why is he fighting at 155 now for the third straight fight? It doesn’t make any sense.
The casual boxing fans don’t seem to mind that Canelo isn’t fighting Golovkin, or that he’s fighting in his own weight class at 155. In that case, it makes sense for Canelo’s promoters at Golden Boy Promotions to put him in with a rusty and arguably no longer relevant fighter like Kirkland rather than someone with a good chance of beating him in Golovkin, Andrade and the Charlo brothers.
If the casual fans don’t know who Canelo is fighting due to them not knowing much about the sport and the different fighters, it makes sense for Golden Boy to match Canelo against guys like Kirkland and Alfredo Angulo instead of Golovkin, Andrade and the Charlo Brothers.
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