By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya says the reason why Golden Boy’s flagship fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (47-1-1, 33 KOs) is fighting WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith (23-0-1, 13 KOs) on September 17 rather than the other junior middleweight champions is that he feels that Smith is the “best champion at 154 pounds.”
De La Hoya says that Canelo is a “natural 154 pounder’ and not a full middleweight despite the fact that he’s been fighting at middleweight for the past two years in all of his fights.
“Canelo Alvarez fought Amir Khan at 155 pounds, and Canelo Alvarez is a junior middleweight,” said De La Hoya at the London Canelo-Smith press conference on Wednesday. “That’s the bottom line. Just like in the past fights when he challenged Austin Trout, he challenged Erislandy Lara, and Floyd Mayweather, Canelo always wants to fight the very best champion at 154 pounds. Yes, I did call his people the next day. It didn’t go very well, but it wasn’t our fault. But we made the move to fight the very best champion at 154 pounds. You have to realize that Canelo Alvarez is moving up only one pound, that’s it. He’s a natural 154 pounder. So we went after the best junior middleweight champion in Liam Smith,” said De La Hoya.
De La Hoya has a tough job in trying to maneuver Canelo around a lot of the dangerous fighters at 154 and 160. I’m not sure how long De La Hoya will be able to do this before he’s forced to start putting Canelo in with the quality guys once again. Canelo has already been beaten by Floyd Mayweather Jr. and arguably beaten by Erislandy Lara and Austin Trout.
Canelo’t can’t make a career out of winning controversial decisions. He also can’t make a career out of fighting guys like Amir Khan, Liam Smith, James Kirkland and Alfredo Angulo. Sooner or later, the boxing public is going to catch on and figure out that Golden Boy isn’t putting Canelo in with the top fighters. He’s being matched carefully with him being steered around the likes of Gennady Golovkin, Daniel Jacobs and other fighters.
I think it’s hard to buy De La Hoya’s line that Canelo is fighting the best junior middleweight champion in Liam Smith. The Charlo brothers, Jermall and Jermell, appear to be better fighters than Liam Smith. Also, Erislandy Lara, the WBA 154lb champion, figures to be a better fighter than Smith as well. Contenders Julian Williams, Demetrius Andrade, and Miguel Cotto are also all likely better than Smith. Obviously, De La Hoya isn’t going to say that his fighter Canelo is taking on the softest of the junior middleweight champions, because his job is to try and pump him up in the media to make him seem unbeatable.
We’re going to find out next year how serious De La Hoya is about matching Canelo against the best when it comes to putting him in with Golovkin. If Canelo isn’t matched against Golovkin, then you have to figure that they’re just going to put the fight off until he’s older and no longer the guy he is right now.