By Eric Baldwin: Golden Boy Promotions spokesman Stefan Friedman says that superstar Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s hand injury won’t be keeping him out of a fight against undisputed middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in the near future. That fight won’t be impacted by the injury Canelo suffered in beating WBO junior middleweight champion Liam “Beefy” Smith (23-1-1, 13 KOs) last Saturday night at the O2 Arena in Arlington, Texas.
The injury will keep Canelo out of the ring for the remainder of 2016, however. Canelo suffered a fracture of his right thumb in the 2nd round against Smith. Canelo had moved down to the junior middleweight division to challenge Smith for his WBO 154lb title.
The move by Canelo to fight at 154 rather than stay and defend his World Boxing Council middleweight title against Golovkin caused him to receive a lot of abuse from the boxing fans, as they didn’t understand the move and felt that it was a less than courageous thing for him to do.
Canelo got the win against Smith in stopping him in the 9th round after dropping him three times in the contest in front of 51,240 boxing fans at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The fight took place at Dallas Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones’ stadium. He’s hoping that Canelo will come back next year to fight Gennady Golovkin at his stadium, because he believes it will bring in more fans than the 51,240 that showed up last Saturday night. Jones might be right about that. If the fight doesn’t get made in 2017, then they won’t be able to take advantage of Jones’ kind offer.
Canelo’s hand injury was diagnosed by hand specialist Dr. Pedro Jaime Lomeli in Guadalajara, Mexico.
“Canelo does not need surgery and the prognosis is excellent,” Friedman said to ESPN.com. “Canelo’s hand will be immobilized for the next six weeks and he will be unable to fight again in 2016. This does nothing to Canelo’s plans to move up (to 160 pounds) and take on the best in the middleweight division next year.”
Canelo will likely be back inside the ring in May of next year. That’ll be a fight on HBO pay-per-view to take advantage of the many fans celebrating the Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo. However, Canelo might choose to fight in January and then in May of 2017. So he would be making up the lost December date by fighting in January. It’s important that Canelo get as many fights as possible under his belt before he face Golovkin in September 2017 so that he’s ready for him.
Hopefully, Canelo selects a better opponent than the one he had last Saturday in Liam Smith. The fight wasn’t competitive enough to get the boxing on the edge of their seats.
Despite suffering the injury early in the fight, Canelo was still able to fight well with it in punishing Smith repeatedly with blasts to the head and body. Canelo knocked Smith down with a right hand in the 7th, and continued to punish him with right hands.
In the 8th, Canelo realized he could hurt Smith with lefts to the body. Canelo then started hitting Smith with repeated lefts to the body until he went down. In the 9th, Canelo put Smith down with a hard left to the midsection that finished the fight. Referee Luis Pabon then stepped in and halted the fight at 2:28 of the 9th.
Smith was rolling around on the canvas looking miserable. It was reminiscent of how Oscar De La Hoya was stopped in the 9th round twelve years ago in 2004 by middleweight Bernard Hopkins in September 2004. Some boxing fans thought it was only fitting that De La Hoya be knocked out, because in his previous fight against Felix Sturm, he won a controversial 12 round decision to move forward to get to the Hopkins match.
Canelo knocked the smaller looking Liam Smith with a clubbing right hand to the head in the 7th while backed up against the ropes. In the 8th and 9th, Canelo knocked Smith down with left hand body shots. By that point in the fight, Smith’s face was a bloody mess, and he looked like he wasn’t a happy camper.
Smith had the look of someone who didn’t belong in the same ring with Canelo. In hindsight, it’s too bad Golden Boy Promotions didn’t match Canelo against a better opponent than Smith, because it was clear from the 1st round that he was NOT the best 154lb fighter in the division like Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya had been saying in the ring up to the fight.
“After I got hurt I probably used my left hand a little more and went to the body a little bit more but (going to the body) was part of the game plan,” Alvarez said to espn.com. “I’ve always said you have to be prepared for anything in that ring and that’s what I was. I was prepared for anything.”
The injury for Canelo wipes out the plans for him to fight on December 10 on HBO. Canelo was expected to fight on regular HBO against one of the following opponents: Billy Joe Saunders, David Lemieux or Curtis Stevens. Canelo’s injury is tough news for a lot of boxing fans to take because they were hoping to see him back inside the ring before the end of the year.
It’s still not quite clear whether Canelo will fight Golovkin next year in September like fans are hoping. De La Hoya said at the post-fight press conference last Saturday night that Canelo will be fighting Golovkin in September 2017. De La Hoya can make the fight happen if he wants to. It just remains to be seen whether he’s serious about wanting to make the fight happen between Canelo and GGG.
If the Canelo-Golovkin fight does take place, it’ll be huge. It’s the biggest fight in boxing right now, and there’s nothing to compare it to at this time. Unless Floyd Mayweather Jr. comes back to fight Manny Pacquiao, there’s no other match-ups that can compare to the Canelo-Golovkin fight. That’s why it’s so surprising that Golden Boy is taking such a huge risk by letting the fight marinate rather than making the right while the interest is still high. Once Golovkin or Canelo lose, the interest will likely drop off from the fans in this fight.
Golovkin stopped welterweight Kell Brook in the 5th round on September 10 in a surprisingly competitive fight. Some fans thought Brook had won the first four rounds of the fight before Golovkin turned up the heat in the 5th and forced the stoppage.