By Dan Ambrose: Gabriel Rosado has his own theory about why Saul “Canelo” Alvarez is fighting Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. next instead of the fighter that the boxing world wants to see him face in Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. Rosado says that the sport has changed and it’s now more business oriented with the best fighters no longer facing the best. So instead of Canelo fighting the best fighter in the middleweight division, he’s facing Chavez Jr., whose career hasn’t been the same since his loss to Sergio Martinez in 2012.
“It’s money, you know,” said Rosado when asked by Behind the Gloves why Canelo is fighting Chavez Jr. instead of Golovkin. “It’s about fighting and making the most money, because boxing is different now. It’s not like it used to be where the best fight the best right then and there. Now it’s a lot of different things that come into play. Do I think Canelo is personally avoiding Triple G? I don’t think so at all. It’s more about the promoters from a business stand point,” said Rosado.
Canelo fighting mostly at catch-weights for the past 4 years instead of in normal weight classes would certainly make it seem like it’s more of a business for him and his promoters nowadays than a sport. When you’re fighting at catch-weights, you’re angling the playing field in your favor at times. You don’t see this in sports like football, basketball, hockey and track. Has the sport of boxing become just business now? If so, then that’s more reason than ever that there needs to be an overall governing body that controls boxing. I don’t think that’s ever going to happen.
I don’t know if Rosado can put it all on Golden Boy Promotions for Canelo not fighting Golovkin. It was Canelo that vacated his WBC middleweight title last year in order not to fight Golovkin. That wasn’t Golden Boy that vacated the belt. It was Canelo. Surely, if Canelo wanted to fight Golovkin, he wouldn’t have vacated his WBC title.
“He’s going to fight Chavez, which is not so easy, especially if Chavez comes in at 100%, so it could backfire on them,” said Rosado about Golden Boy Promotions picking out Chavez Jr. to fight Canelo instead of GGG. “Me and Chavez were supposed to fight. They called me up to fight Chavez right after the Willie [Monroe Jr.] fight. I turned it down because I wasn’t healthy. I was dealing with a bad leg injury. I had to be honest with myself. I couldn’t go into another fight injured. I’ve got to be 100 percent. I’m glad I did because now this fight presents itself,” said Rosado in speaking about his fight against Martin Murray on Saturday night. “I think it’s a better look for me,” said Rosado.
Rosado sees the heavyweight match between IBF champion Anthony Joshua and former champion Wladimir Klitschko as a 50-50 affair. The two giant heavyweights will be fighting in 8 days from now on April 29 at Wembley Stadium in London, England.
“You can’t really judge [Wladimir] Klitschko off his last performance,” said Rosado about Klitschko’s loss to Tyson Fury in 2015. “Fury is such an awkward style. I think he’d give anybody problems. I think Joshua is a little more fundamental where it could be a little easier for Klitschko to get some shots off. It’s a great fight. I think it’s a 50-50 fight,” said Rosado in speaking about the Joshua-Klitschko fight.
Wladimir has looked bad in 2 straight fights, not just one. He didn’t look good in beating Bryant Jennings in 2014. The style was not a difficult one. Wladimir couldn’t hit Jennings with his power shots, so he ended up jabbing, holding and moving all night long in an ugly decision win.
Rosado had this to say about his fight against Murray on Saturday:
“It’s going to be a great fight. I’m not coming across the pond to fight a boring fight or to put in an [expletive] performance. I plan on giving the fans their money’s worth.”
Rosado (23-10, 13 KOs) has a fight this Saturday night against former 4 time world title challenger Martin Murray (34-4-1, 16 KOs) in a 12 round fight at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, England. If Rosado loses this fight, he may very well have wished that he’d agreed to face Chavez Jr. instead.
Losing to Murray doesn’t have as much cache as losing to Chavez Jr. in this writer’s opinion. Murray has been beaten a 4 times in his career with all of the defeats coming in the last 4 years. That’s a lot of losses in a short time frame. Chavez Jr. only has 2 defeats on his resume, and he’s a former world champion at middleweight.
De La Hoya says Canelo will dominate the middleweight division now
Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions says that he’s not moving Saul “Canelo” Alvarez up to middleweight right now because of middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin’s recent shaky performance in beating Danny Jacobs on March 18 last month. De La Hoya says the idea was all along for Canelo to move up to 160 at this time and start dominating right now.
“It has nothing to do with his last fight,” said Canelo Alvarez’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya to Fighthub.com in talking about why he’s now interested in matching Canelo against Gennady Golovkin following his unspectacular performance against Daniel Jacobs on March 18. “Triple G fought a well-prepared Daniel Jacobs, who did a phenomenal job, but it has nothing to do with it. Look, I’ve always had a plan to when Canelo is going to fight at 160 and stay at 160 and dominate the middleweight division, and so the time is now. So it has nothing to do with the Jacobs fight. I would say after this year or during this year that Canelo will be the pound-for-pound king,” said De La Hoya.
There are a number of fans that believe that the only reason Canelo and Golden Boy are interested in facing Golovkin now is because of his shaky performance against Jacobs last March. I don’t think De La Hoya is going to be able to make these fans believe that he had always this time in mind to move Canelo up to 160. The fans believe that De La Hoya is only moving Canelo up now because the 35-year-old Golovkin was made to look vulnerable in his last fight against Jacobs.