By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya has been saying for weeks that WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) is the face of boxing now that Floyd Mayweather Jr. has retired from the sport. It’s interesting that De La Hoya is convinced that the 25-year-old Canelo is the new No.1 fighter in the sport with him perched between weight classes at his designed weight of 155lbs and not fighting Gennady Golovkin.
The question is can Canelo be the sport’s new face if he won’t even fight at the full weight for the middleweight division and won’t fight Golovkin? It looks bad from the outside at Canelo making excuses for not fighting Golovkin while at the same time fighting at 155 against a welterweight in Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) this Saturday night.
Canelo still insists he’s a junior middleweight [154lbs] despite holding down the WBC middleweight title. Khan’s trainer Virgil Hunter thinks that it’s ridiculous to see Canelo for anything other than what he is – a middleweight.
“Canelo is a middleweight,” said Hunter to the media. “I don’t care what nobody says. He’s a middleweight. When you guys [the media] start telling it like it is, it’ll be like it is. Until then, I don’t even want to talk about that because it’s really sad. The man [Canelo] has got the belt, don’t he? He’s a middleweight. On Saturday night, it’s going to be for the middleweight championship of the world. Aren’t they going to say that? He’s a [expletive] middleweight,” said Hunter.
Canelo said this week that he’s not going to fight any middleweight that weighs in at 160 for as long as he’s fighting at 155.
“While I am at this weight, I will not fight someone who weighs 160 pounds,” said Canelo. “That would be an advantage to my opponent. Why would I give them that advantage? I feel comfortable at 154lbs.”
Some boxing fans believe that the only reason Canelo is fighting at 155 is so that he can avoid fighting Golovkin, because the Kazakhstan fighter has made it clear that he won’t be melting down to 155 to fight a guy that weighs the same amount as him.
Golovkin doesn’t see any point in Canelo insisting on weighing in at 155, when he’s going to rehydrate into the 170s like himself. Golovkin sees Canelo as a middleweight and he doesn’t want to melt down to 155 to fight for the 160lb title.
Mayweather is gone now and the sport is looking for someone to step up to carry the reigns. Golden Boy believe that Canelo is the new guy after his narrow win over 35-year-old Miguel Cotto last November. However, that victory was against a small, aging fighter in Cotto, who looked like he was 15-20 pounds lighter than him inside the ring in that fight.
Canelo didn’t beat Golovkin. He beat a small middleweight in Cotto, who only moved up to middleweight in 2014 to take on the 40-year-old Sergio Martinez. Cotto fought a guy that was at the end of the line in Martinez. At that point in Martinez’s career, he had a bad right knee and he wasn’t the same fighter that he’d been previously.
Cotto then started the catch-weight ball rolling by defending the WBC middleweight title at a catch-weight against Daniel Geale and then another catch-weight against Canelo. Now we’re seeing Canelo carry on the tradition of fighting at catch-weights by defending the WBC middleweight title against welterweight Amir Khan at a catch-weight of 155lbs on Saturday on HBO PPV in Las Vegas, Nevada. As Khan’s trainer Hunter sad, he sees it as sad that Canelo won’t admit that he’s a middleweight. Hunter doesn’t approve of Canelo saying he’s not a middleweight while defending his WBC middleweight title at a catch-weight against a welterweight.
“It’s a lot more added pressure, knowing that you’re the man carrying the sport,” De La Hoya said to ESPN.com. “You must perform at your highest level at all times and then some, which can bring a lot of anxiety. It can bring a lot of nerves, especially in fight week. But one thing about Canelo is that he is a very poised, focused young individual who keeps surprising me every single time I talk to him.”
If Canelo is the person that is going to carry the sport of boxing on his back for the next 10 years with Mayweather gone, then the sport got a downgrade in talent. Mayweather was careful in the fights he took. He didn’t fight guys like Manny Pacquiao in his prime, and never fought Antonio Margarito or Paul Williams when they were both around in the welterweight division.
Mayweather didn’t fight Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter, Kell Brook or Gennady Golovkin. Mayweather was careful with the guys he fought. It looks like Canelo may following in the same tradition if he avoids the Golovkin fight while holing up at 155, a nether weight class that is in between middleweight and junior middleweight. It’s not a weight class yet.
I suppose the sanctioning bodies could get around to making 155 a weight class if they choose to. But if they do that, what’s to keep Canelo from creating a new catch-weight class at 156? It can keep going on and on. It’s hard to imagine this kind of thing taking place in the NFL or in Major League Baseball. If one team decided that they needed a handicap to gain an advantage that worked in their favor, the Commissioner of MLB would likely block that attempt. If we saw the same thing in the NFL, it would very likely be blocked as well. Only in boxing do you see this kind of thing, and it shows you how far the sport has to go before it’s at the same level as other sports are in terms of regulation.
I do believe that Canelo can be the new face of boxing while avoiding Golovkin until he’s older and has lost his skills, because the casual fans won’t likely be aware of this. They’ll only see Canelo fighting on HBO against whoever Golden Boy has picked out for him. Golovkin will likely need to travel in a separate lane from Canelo until he’s older and likely perceived as not a threat to beating Canelo.