Canelo & trainers very complimentary of Liam Smith

By Boxing News - 08/31/2016 - Comments

canelo197

By Dan Ambrose: In what has to be seen as a signal that the boxing public is about to see another mismatch involving Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, he and his trainers are now building up WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith (23-0-1, 13 KOs) by saying nice things about him in the media about how good he is.

Canelo is fighting the little known Smith on HBO pay-per-view at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The fans don’t seem to be showing much interest in the fight because they see Smith as pretty much just a sacrificial lamb that Team Canelo and Golden Boy have carefully selected. With Team Canelo now trying to build Smith up with the American boxing fans, it tells you that this is another bad mismatch like Canelo’s last fight against the badly flawed struggling welterweight Amir Khan.

Photo Credit: Tom Hogan/Golden Boy Promotions

We saw how Khan was being built up as a real threat to beating Canelo by Golden Boy before the fight. What did we see on fight night? Canelo knocking Khan clean out in six rounds. It look Canelo took it easy on Khan for five rounds before getting serious with him in the 6th round to knock him out.

YouTube video

“Just because Smith isn’t very well known in the U.S. doesn’t diminish how tough he is as an opponent,” said Canelo in building up Smith. “We expect him to be very powerful, and we are training for that.”

That just looks like to me that Canelo is doing Liam Smith’s promoter’s job for him by smothering him with compliments instead of doing what normal fighters do in tearing down their opponents. In this case, I don’t think Canelo can afford to do that with Smith, because he’s already dismissed as a non-threat by the hardcore boxing fans. The casual fans don’t have a clue who Smith is in the U.S. Their attitude is pretty much something like this: ‘Oh, Canelo is fighting someone named Liam Smith on September 17. Who is Liam Smith? I sure hope Canelo wins. I don’t want to buy this thing. When is Canelo going to start fighting good opponents again? He’s been on a dry spell ever since he lost to Floyd Mayweather Jr.’

If Canelo would fight someone good like Gennady Golovkin, he wouldn’t have to do the job of his promoter by building him up before the fight. Canelo could focus on getting ready for the contest and telling the boxing media how he’s going to beat Golovkin. It would be actual news and not just PR stuff from Canelo in him having to pump up one of his opponents like we’re seeing now with his fight against the little known Liam Smith.

“People can have their opinions on the fight. We are training for a world title fight, which is worth respecting,” said Canelo’s lead trainer Eddy Reynoso about the Canelo-Smith fight.

This Reynoso guy sounds defensive about the Smith fight, doesn’t he? Why would a trainer be defensive about opponent unless he had good reason to be? Reynoso is obviously well aware that many fans don’t care for this fight, and feel that Canelo and Golden Boy selected another guy that doesn’t have a pray. The bad thing about selecting weak opposition like Liam Smith is that it weakens the Canelo brand with him fighting guys like this.

YouTube video

Canelo is stunting his growth as a fighter in terms of popularity by fighting weak opponents that the fans don’t have any interest in seeing him fight. It’s like with Floyd Mayweather Jr. fighting Andre Berto.

Few fans wanted to see that fight, and we saw the results of that decision on Mayweather’s part in choosing him with the fight producing low PPV buys. With Canelo, it’s like he’s fighting a Berto like fighter over and over again with him facing Khan, James Kirkland, Liam Smith and Alfredo Angulo. Those were just really poor choices for Canelo, and he’s only hurting himself.

“He is a dangerous fighter, and just because he isn’t known here doesn’t take away his potential,” said Canelo’s manager/trainer Jose Reynoso about Smith.

This is just another example of Team Canelo trying to stay on message in building up Smith as a good opponent for Canelo. What they should be doing is talking about how Canelo is going to beat Smith easily. That’s the normal thing for a training team to do, but they can’t do it in this case because Smith is already being dumped on by the media as having no chance of winning this fight. It would be seen as piling on if Canelo’s team dumped on Smith as well. So instead of them doing that, they’re spending time building him up by saying good things about him.

It’s a pity that Canelo and Golden Boy chose Liam Smith as the guy for him to fight rather than Golovkin, Daniel Jacobs, Jermall Charlo, Jermell Charlo, Julian Williams or Demetrius Andrade. Even a rematch against Erislandy Lara would be infinitely better than a fight against Liam Smith. Canelo won a controversial 12 round decision over Lara in 2014, and a lot of boxing fan would love to see him do the right thing by giving the Cuban fighter a rematch so that they could clear up the controversy behind their previous fight. I think the fans would much prefer to see Canelo fight Lara a second time rather than seeing him fight a hand-picked opponent like Liam Smith.

If Canelo beats Smith like a lot of fans think he will, he’s not going to get much credit because the guy is seen as a big underdog in the fight. If Canelo beats him, the fans will say ‘so what.’ If Canelo loses or struggles to beat Smith, the fans will dump all over him and he’ll lose a ton of status. Canelo’s stock will drop even lower than it did when he lost to Mayweather. That’s why it’s important for Canelo to always fight the very best opponent every time out so that he can credit if he wins. At the same time, if he loses to a very good fighter, he won’t be criticized as much because the fans will see him as brave for taking on a good opponent.