De La Hoya: Canelo is fighting the best 154 pound fighter

By Boxing News - 07/21/2016 - Comments

Image: De La Hoya: Canelo is fighting the best 154 pound fighter

By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya is claiming that his fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez will be fighting the best junior middleweight in the division on September 17 in his fight against WBO 154lb champion Liam Smith (23-0-1, 13 KOs).

De La Hoya says that the reasons why they selected Smith for Canelo is because he’s an undefeated champion and the best fighter in the division. It’s interesting that De La Hoya sees the 27-year-old Smith as the No.1 fighter at junior middleweight, because that belief runs counter to how the boxing world sees him.

In the minds of many fans, Smith is little more than a paper champion, a fighter who won his WBO title the easy way by fighting John Thompson for the strap. Smith has since defended his title twice against two lower level fighters named Jimmy Kelly and Predrag Radosevic.

I think it’s bad enough that Canelo has been matched against Smith rather than the arguably more talented champions like the Charlo brothers and Erislandy Lara, but De La Hoya makes Canelo look worse by saying that Liam Smith is the No.1 fighter in the 154lb division. That’s just wrong. I know De La Hoya wants to be a good promoter for Canelo, but when he says stuff like Smith is No.1 at junior middleweight, it just comes across in a bad way like he’s being disingenuous. It would be like De La Hoya saying that Amir Khan is the No.1 welterweight in the division. If De La Hoya can’t give the fans the straight talk, then they’ll stop trusting what he says.

For a fighter that is supposedly the best guy in the 154lb division, Smith has been taking the safe route in defending his WBO title up until now. Smith didn’t have to beat a high quality fighter to win the WBO belt, and he’s played it safe in his two title defenses.

“I can’t wait to fill this baby up here,” said De La Hoya to Round by Round Boxing about the AT&T Stadium for the Canelo-Smith fight. “We’re ready to have a spectacular night of boxing. I have no doubts that we’ll fill up this place. It’s going to be historical,” said De La Hoya.

YouTube video

When asked why he decided to match Canelo against Liam Smith, De La Hoya said, “The fact that he’s a champion and undefeated, and the fact that he’s the best 154 pound fighter out there. Canelo is a 154 pound fighter, and we had to challenge for a world title. The fact that the UK has 14 world champions and Mexico has only seven. It’s a pride thing. Canelo wants to go out there and take the title back to Mexico. He wants to show everybody he’s a world champion.”

“He’s a natural 154 pounder,” said De La Hoya about Canelo.” So we went after the best junior middleweight champion in Liam Smith.”

I do think Smith is one of the best fighters in the 154lb division, but I don’t see him as No.1 in the division or even close to that. I personally rate Smith at No.12 in the junior middleweight division. I don’t think he can beat a lot of the top guys and even the contenders in the division. Smith is too limited to beat guys like the Charlo brothers, Erislandy Lara, Demetrius Andrade, Erickson Lubin and Julian Williams in my view.

Here are the fighters that I rate as the best in the junior middleweight division:

1. Jermall Charlo

2. Demetrius Andrade

3. Erislandy Lara

4. Julian Williams

5. Erickson Lubin

6. Miguel Cotto

7. Vanes Martirosyan

8. Austin Trout

9. Cornelius Bundrage

10. Saul Canelo Alvarez

11. Gabriel Rosado

12. Liam Smith

I think De La Hoya has picked a soft touch for Canelo to win an easy title without risking him getting beaten again. Canelo can’t afford to take too many more losses if he wants to continue to be a pay-per-view fighter. Besides Canelo’s loss to Floyd Mayweather, he’s had poor performances against Miguel Cotto, Lara and Trout. Winning controversial decisions or being involved in close fights has a way of causes fans to jump ship in search of fighters that are more impressive. In this case, Gennady Golovkin appears to be getting more popular with each fight, and I think he’s picking up Canelo’s fans as they jump ship due to his poor match-making and less than impressive performances.