By Dan Ambrose: Liam Smith says the reason why Saul “Canelo” Alvarez came down to 154 to fight him for his WBO junior middleweight title was for him to save face over ducking the fight against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. Canelo was supposed to defend his World Boxing Council middleweight title against Golovkin due to him being Canelo’s mandatory challenger.
The WBC had already ordered the negotiations to take place between Canelo and Golovkin, and they even had a deadline in place for the negotiations to be finished. But instead of Canelo defending his WBC title against Triple G, he gave up his belt by vacating it, and he then moved down to 154 to challenge Liam Smith for his WBO junior middleweight title. Smith thinks that was a calculated move on Canelo’s part to keep him from catching heat from the boxing public.
Smith, 27, says he would have readily agreed to fight Canelo at 155lb at his favorite catch-weight if his promoters at Golden Boy had asked him to move up in weight for the fight. Smith says he would have even moved up to 156 to take the fight with Canelo, but he wasn’t asked.
Smith feels the reason why Canelo didn’t ask to come up in weight was because he needed an excuse to save face for having ducked the fight against Golovkin. By coming down to 154 to fight him for his WBO junior middleweight title, Canelo could tell the boxing fans that he’s a 154lb fighter, not a middleweight at 160. Therefore, he shouldn’t have to fight Golovkin because he’s not a legitimate middleweight like him.
“I would have taken the fight at 155. I can make 155 and I can even do 156,” said Smith to Fightnews.com about the Canelo fight. “The negotiation was 154 and I understood why because he has to save face. To look respectful for him to give his middleweight title up, he has to come back to 154. That’s why I was always confident I could get the fight. It would be embarrassing if he ducked Golovkin and didn’t. I knew he had to come to 154. From their point of view, he beats me and is back a champion at 154. ‘I can make 154. I’m not fighting GGG at 160.’ That was their excuse.”
the thing with Canelo moving down to 154lbs in a perceived move to take refuge from the criticism for not facing Golovkin is that he clearly stay at this weight for any length of time. It’s got to be very hard on Canelo’s body to make 154 at this point in his career. If Canelo is really rehydrating up to 185lbs for his fights now, then it’s going to a real battle for hm to get down to 154 for the Smith fight. We’re talking 30lbs of weight that Canelo would be dropping the week of the fight. In looking at how hard Canelo is working out to prepare for the Smith fight, it appears he’s working hard to get trim as possible, because he’s going to have to try and make 154 for the first time in three years. It’s a lot harder for someone to drop weight than it is for someone that is at the right weight for their body size like Smith. If Canelo is weighing in the mid-180s now, then he really should be fighting at super middleweight. Taking off an enormous amount of weight to get down to 154 or even 160 is going to catch up to Canelo sooner or later. He’s been able to get away with it lately with him fighting smaller guys like Amir Khan and Miguel Cotto, and older fighters like James Kirkland.
It remains to be seen whether Canelo will come out of this smelling like a rose. Canelo’s fans might get excited at seeing him win a world title, period. They may not care that Canelo gave up his WBC middleweight title to move down in weight, because they’re likely not seeing the angle for him moving down in weight. To know that kind of stuff, Canelo’s casual boxing fans would need to be very knowledgeable about his career. I don’t think they are. These are casual fans with only a scant amount of knowledge about what goes on in the sport.
It’s thought by a lot of fans that not only did Canelo choose to move down to 154 to save face for not fighting Golovkin, but also he picked what many believe to be the easiest of the junior middleweight tite holders in the division in Liam Smith. Canelo didn’t pick champions like Jermall and Jermell Charlo or Erislandy Lara. Those would have been tough fights for Canelo, especially with him having to boil down to 154 to make weight.
It’s still unknown if Canelo will even be able to make weight for the Smith fight. You have to remember that Canelo hasn’t fought in the junior middleweight division since his fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2013. That was three years ago when Canelo was younger. He’s still young at 26, but he’s clearly gotten bigger. All you need to do is take one look at Canelo’s last fight against Amir Khan last May and compare it to how big he looked in 2013, when he was fighting guys like Mayweather and Austin Trout.
Canelo looks like a different person now due to him being heavier. That means it’s going to be harder for Canelo to take the weight off to get down to 154 for the Smith fight on September 17 on HBO pay-per-view at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. If Canelo fails to make weight, it wouldn’t be the first time that he missed weight. He came in overweight for his catch-weight fight against welterweight Matthew Hatton in March 2011 for the vacant WBC junior middleweight title. It’s interesting that Canelo fought a welterweight in Matthew Hatton for the vacant WBC 154lb title rather than one of the WBC’s contenders in their top 15 at 154.
Smith has to know that he doesn’t have much of a chance of winning against Canelo. Some fans think Smith has sold his WBO title to Canelo by agreeing to fight him, because it’s considered a mismatch on his part by agreeing to fight someone with the size, power, talent and experience that Canelo has going for him. Canelo also is the far more popular of the two fighters, which means that if the fight is anywhere close, Canelo will likely be the one winning the rounds and getting the decision at the end of the fight.
Smith doesn’t sound like someone that believes in himself. He must know that he’s really up against it in this fight, and has pretty much no chance of winning other than by a knockout. If Smith can put some pressure on Canelo like he says he wants to, then maybe he could get lucky and take him out with a body shot. Smith says he’s noticed that Canelo can’t fight hard for a full three minutes of every round, and he wants to take advantage of that on September 17 by pushing a fast pace. I don’t know if Smith is going to be able to do that with Canelo outweighing him by 15 to 20 pounds on the night. It’s difficult to win against guys with that kind of a size advantage.