By Dan Ambrose: Antonio Margarito will be back inside the ring this Saturday night on August 13 against Ramon Alvarez, the brother of Mexican star Saul Canelo Alvarez, at the Centro De Convenciones, in junior middleweight action in Tijuana, Mexico. Margarito (39-8, 27 KOs) is hoping to beat Alvarez and use the victory to get a bigger fight against the likes of Canelo.
It’s pretty unlikely to happen even if he does beat Ramon. It’s not as if Ramon hasn’t been beaten before in the past by different fighters, and Canelo never chose to step in and avenge his brother’s losses. You can’t rule out Canelo’s promoters at Golden Boy Promotions matching him against Margarito though, because they recently put Canelo in with James Kirkland, a fighter who is long past being one of the relevant fighters in the 154lb division due to inactivity.
Margarito recently came off of a five-year layoff from boxing to defeat Jorge Paez Jr. last March in winning a hard fought 12 round unanimous decision. Margarito was knocked down hard by Paez Jr. in that fight, but he was able to get back up and outwork him the rest of the way to get the victory. Margarito had Paez Jr. in trouble in the 12th round when he hurt him with a flurry of shots to the head.
Margarito suffered a fractured left orbital bone in his 12 round decision loss to Manny Pacquiao in 2010. Margarito has since had a number of eye surgeries on the eye. In his loss to Miguel Cotto in 2011, Margarito’s eye swelled close, causing the fight to be halted in the 9th round.
Margarito might just well beat Ramon, but it would be really surprising if Golden Boy chooses to let him get a fight against Canelo I the fall because supposedly he’s supposed to fight at middleweight against WBO champion Billy Joe Saunders in December if he beats WBO 154lb champion Liam Smith on September 17. A fight between Canelo and Margarito would seem like a sad circus like fight, even worse than the ridiculous match between Canelo and Kirkland last year. It’s one thing for Canelo to be melting down from the 180s to fight welterweights like Amir Khan or junior middleweights like Liam Smith, but another thing entirely for him to be fighting guys from the past like Margarito.
A win for Margarito over the #12 WBC Ramon Alvarez will knock him out of the World Boxing Council’s rankings and it would be seen as a huge setback for his career. The 30-year-old Alvarez hasn’t lost a fight since 2012, when he was beaten by Mario Alberto Lozano by a 12 round unanimous decision. Alvarez hasn’t lost since then, but he also hasn’t faced anyone that you can call a good fighter or even close to being a good fighter. Even Lozano isn’t a world class fighter, and Ramon should have been able to beat this guy if he was any good.
Margarito will likely pick up a top 15 ranking with a win over Ramon, and that in turn may give Canelo any cover that he needs if he decides to fight him.
At this point, I don’t think you can rule out Canelo fighting Margarito because it would be an easy payday and there would likely be enough casual boxing fans in the United States to purchase the fight on HBO pay-per-view due to them not knowing that Margarito is nowhere near the same fighter he was eight years ago when he stopped Cotto in the 11th round in 2008.