Hopkins: Canelo is in lead position to take Mayweather’s spot

By Boxing News - 10/05/2015 - Comments

1-cotto-canelo-m (10)By Dan Ambrose: Now that Floyd Mayweather Jr. is retired there’s debate about who the next superstar in the sport will be to take over his spot as the No.1 fighter in boxing that the fans can rally around. I’m not talking about the pound-for-pound rankings, which are put together by a small handful of people.

I’m talking about someone to take over Mayweather’s spot as the No.1 fighter that brings in the fans for pay-per-view. Bernard Hopkins thinks that guy in the lead position right now is former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs). For Canelo to take Mayweather’s throne completely, he’s going to need to beat WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto in their fight next month on November 21st.

Canelo will also need to beat the winner of the October 17th fight between Gennady “GGG” Golovkin and David Lemieux. If Canelo can win those two fights, he will have remove most of the obstacles for him becoming the No.1 fighter.

The only other thing that he would need to do is beat the winner of the Daniel Jacobs vs. Peter Quillin and Billy Joe Saunders vs. Andy Lee fights. That’s if Canelo decides to stay at middleweight after the Cotto fight.

“I don’t blame Floyd for fighting Berto,” Hopkins said to Fighthub. “He got his minimum, his guaranteed [money from Showtime]. He fought everybody they wanted him to fight, and he had an opportunity to fight Berto and he did. Berto got a payday. Berto put in a good account of himself, but he didn’t surprise anybody in how he was going to fight. Floyd retired and there are so many people that are right there. Canelo is one of them to be the next blockbuster superstar in that position. I’m not saying he’s not that now. Now that it’s clear that he’s the only one after him [Mayweather], they’ll have to chase Canelo for that seat Floyd’s been holding for many, many years,” Hopkins said.

YouTube video

I don’t think Canelo has settled anything as far as showing he’s in the lead position to take Mayweather’s spot. If anything, I think Golovkin is now in the No1 spot if you remove Manny Pacquiao from the equation. Canelo has lost a lot of fans with his defeat to Mayweather and his close wins over Erislandy Lara and Austin Trout. I don’t believe that Canelo has rebounded from those three fights, and now he’s facing Cotto on November 21st.

I can see Cotto winning this fight and putting Canelo in an impossible position to capture the No.1 spot. Canelo isn’t going to be able to comeback from a defeat to Cotto to take the No.1 spot from Golovkin if all Golden Boy is going to do is put him in with guys like Alfredo Angulo and James Kirkland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFJZdRtBxfE

Canelo can’t prove anything by fighting slow over-the-hill fighters like those guys. There is no backdoor route to taking Mayweather’s No.1 spot. You have to be able to beat the best fighters time after time, and unfortunately I don’t think Canelo has the talent to do that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3A-Ultujhg



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