De La Hoya: Canelo is about to become a crossover star!

By Boxing News - 08/29/2016 - Comments

Image: De La Hoya: Canelo is about to become a crossover star!

By Eric Baldwin: Depending on Mexican star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s success in the with his coming fights this year and in 2017, he could be on his way to becoming the next crossover star if he can beat the likes of Liam Smith, Billy Joe Saunders and Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya believes that Canelo is on the cusp of becoming a crossover star in becoming a huge star in the United States.

The 26-year-old Canelo already is a big star in his native Mexico, and he has been for some time. Breaking into the U.S markets to get the riches from the huge population has proven to be tougher for Canelo, because the fans haven’t fully adopted the Mexican star as of yet.

Canelo’s fights where he’s been the headliner have varied from 300,000 to 900,000 pay-per-view buys. Those are decent numbers, but nothing compared to the PPV numbers that Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao were enjoying during the height of their fame in their long boxing careers.

“There is no doubt that Canelo is today already the biggest boxing star in Mexico and the United States,” said De La Hoya. “He is in the process of crossing over as a worldwide superstar, but he will never forget where he came from and the rich boxing tradition of Mexico.”

Canelo is bringing in more PPV buys than the existing boxing stars in the U.S right now, but he and Golden Boy have been reluctant to have him take the plunge to put him in with good opposition ever since they got burned with him losing to Floyd Mayweather Jr. badly in 2013 and almost losing to Erislandy Lara in 2014. You can say that Canelo lost to Erislandy Lara in that fight. Two of the judges gave the fight to Canelo, whereas a third judge had Lara winning. Canelo appeared to lose that fight in this writer’s eye.

Golden Boy has been careful with Canelo ever since the Lara fight in matching him against guys that don’t weigh as much as him, and he’s done well against his lighter foes. De La Hoya keeps insisting that Canelo isn’t yet big enough to fight a middleweight, but many boxing fans are saying that he is. They feel that Canelo wants to gain more weight so that he can have a big advantage over the middleweights he fights.

Never the less, if Canelo wants to become a true crossover star and not a partial one, he’s going to need to be matched against the better fighters in the 154 and 160lb divisions so that the fans can see how he does against the best rather than the 2nd or third best, or perhaps even the 5th best fighter in their respective divisions. Liam Smith, Canelo’s next opponent for his September 17 fight next month on HBO pay-per-view, is seen by some to be the 10th best fighter in the division and not the No.1 fighter as De La Hoya is saying he is.

“Mexican fighters have long been known for their toughness, their ability to walk through fire, their willingness to take three punches to land a solid shot,” said De La Hoya. “That is Canelo Alvarez.

Canelo isn’t the type of fighter that likes to walk through punches to land his own. He doesn’t fight like that. Canelo goes out of his way not to get hit with punches. He doesn’t walk into shots the way that some fighters do. He’s very careful when he attacks, and that makes him a different fighter from many of the Mexican boxing stars of the past. He’s not another Julian Cesar Chavez and definitely not another Salvado Sanchez. Those were great fighters that never shied away from fighting the best.

“Canelo is built from the mold of all-time Mexican greats like Julio Caesar Chavez, Salvador Sanchez and Ruben Oliveras – strong fighters with knockout power that focus on two things; being the best fighter in the world and putting on a show for the fans. And that’s what Canelo will continue to do for the rest of his career,” said De La Hoya.

It’s not really fair to Canelo for De La Hoya to compare him to guys like Chavez and Salvador, because he’s not that kind of talent. Canelo is completely different from those guys. Sanchez was on another level in terms of talent. If you look at some of Sanchez’s old tapes, he was an incredible fighter that could do everything inside the ring. Canelo is more of a guy that uses weight size to dominate guys that don’t weigh as much as him. That’s not to say that Canelo isn’t a good fighter, but he’s shown that same kind of talent that Chavez and Sanchez had and definitely not former two division world champion Ruben Oliveras. Canelo isn’t like those guys. He’s more of a combination of Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and Fernando Vargas than anything. Canelo has the qualities and vulnerabilities of both of those fighters, but he’s light years away from Chavez Sr., Olivares and Sanchez in terms of talent.

“Incredibly, he has been embraced as Mexico’s biggest and best boxer for years, despite being only 26 years old, and that’s because the Mexican fans know a true champion when they see one,” said De La Hoya. “The only thing that has even remotely tempered his star power is the lack of availability of the two biggest days in boxing on Cinco De Mayo in May and Mexican Independence Day in September.”

Having the Mexican dates in his possession will definitely help Canelo make more money from PPV sales, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to become a crossover star the way that De La Hoya did. It was easier for De La Hoya because he was a former U.S Olympic gold medalist, and he was facing the absolute best in the divisions he was fighting in. De La Hoya didn’t have any qualms with fighting the very best during his career. Things obviously didn’t go well for him in some of his biggest fights of his career, but he was still willing to take on the best, and I think the American boxing public respected him for that. They were willing to give him a break if he lost to guys like Shane Mosley, Bernard Hopkins and Felix Trinidad.