Canelo – How long can Golden Boy keep Saul winning?

By Boxing News - 10/18/2016 - Comments

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By Dan Ambrose: It’s been three years since Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (48-1-1, 34 KOs) tasted defeat for the only time in his 11-year pro career in losing to Floyd Mayweather Jr. by a 12 round majority decision in 2013. For boxing fans that saw the fight, it was a clear win for Mayweather.

The fight results showed how hard it is to beat a popular fighter like Canelo, because he just seems to have something about him that keeps him winning. For many boxing fans that saw Canelo’s fight against Erislandy Lara in 2014, they felt that Lara should have been given the win. Indeed, Canelo won the fight by a 12 round split decision despite landing only 31 head shots in the entire fight.

Since Canelo lost to Mayweather in 2013, his promoters at Golden Boy have matched him carefully by putting him in with guys that either mediocre fighters from yesterday or guys that were much lighter than him.

Canelo is currently nursing an injured right hand that he suffered in his win over little known WBO 154lb champion Liam Smith last September. When Canelo does return to the ring in early 2017, he’s expected to be matched against one of the following fighters: David Lemieux, Danny Garcia, or Billy Joe Saunders. Those are three winnable fights for Canelo.

It’s quite possible that Golden Boy won’t match Canelo fought until he’s put in with middleweight champion Gennady “GGG’ Golovkin in the future. Like a lot of boxing fans, I don’t think the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight will take place in 2017. I don’t think it’s about the fight needing more time to marinate. I think it’s a situation where Golovkin needs to age more so that he’s less of a threat to beating Canelo. That’s the sad part. The fight will get made in the future, but only when Golovkin is older and not as dangerous as he is now in my view.

Canelo will almost surely be matched against WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders in 2017 so that he can win an easy belt. One Canelo is the champion at middleweight, then we’re probably looking at easy title defenses for him against the likes of David Lemieux, Avtandil Khurtsidze and Curtis Stevens.

Here are the fighters that Canelo has fought since his loss to Mayweather:

James Kirkland – this was a mismatch for Canelo, as Kirkland hadn’t been an active fighter for ages at the time that he fought him. It is still unclear why Golden Boy matched Canelo against a fighter from the past like Kirkland, because the fight made no sense other than for a record padding type of match.

Amir Khan – Canelo had a HUGE size advantage over Khan. The fight was won for Canelo the moment that Golden Boy picked Khan from the welterweight division to move up to middleweight to fight Canelo.

Alfredo Angulo – This was another mismatch. Angulo was a relevant fighter five years ago, but he stopped being a major player a long time ago. This wasn’t even a fight. Canelo was way too good. The real question is why did Golden Boy match Canelo against a fighter like Angulo rather than a top contender from the 154lb division like Julian Williams, Demetrius Andrade, or the Charlo brothers. It was very strange.

Erislandy Lara – Canelo arguably lost to Lara in the eyes of a lot of fans. There was no rematch given to Lara, and it remains a black eye for Canelo because he failed to prove that he was the better fighter.

Miguel Cotto – Canelo used his size advantage to defeat Cotto by a 12 round decision last November in a fight that was closer than the ridiculous scores that were handed down by the three judges that orked the fight. The judges had Canelo winning by the following scores: 118-110, 119-109 and 117-111. This writer had the fight scored a draw.

Liam Smith – This was a mismatch the moment the fight was made by Golden Boy, as Liam Smith had never proven himself to be a high caliber fighter. He didn’t beat a top name to become the WBO junior middleweight champion, and he’d done nothing in making two defenses against fringe contenders Predrag Radosevic and Jimmy Kelly. Those were not exactly household names at 154. With all the options available to Canelo for fights at 154, you have to wonder why Liam Smith was selected by Golden Boy.