By Matt Stein: Fresh off his 6th round knockout victory over 39-year-old Carlos Baldomir on Saturday night, 20-year-old unbeaten welterweight contender Saul Alvarez (34-0-1, 26 KO’s) will reportedly be back in the ring quickly, as his promotional company Golden Boy Promotions wants Alvarez to fight on December 4th in Mexico against a still to be determined opponent. GBP also signed Alvarez to a multi-year contract today, which may or may not be a smart thing because we still don’t know whether Alvarez will be a future star or not.
This could end up backfiring on Golden Boy if Alvarez ends up being just another flash in the pan. We do know he can beat B level fighters, smaller fighters and older ones like Baldomir. But we don’t know if he can beat a quality welterweight like Mike Jones, Andre Berto or Shane Mosley. It could be that Alvarez will never have the talent to beat those kinds of guys.
What is even more worrisome is that he seems to be still growing and will likely end up either a super middleweight or a light heavyweight by the time he’s finished filling out. Alvarez might be able to dominate the 2nd tier opposition that he’s been put in with at welterweight, but his chances of dominating at middleweight and super middleweight will drop dramatically because of his lack of blazing speed and defensive ability.
Right now, Alvarez is still able to squeeze into the 147 pound class, which is very weak in talent right now. However, if he moves up to junior middleweight and higher, Alvarez may have a hard time finding success unless they skillfully match him up against beatable guys his entire career. Once they put him in with fighters like Sergio Martinez, Alfredo Angulo, and James Kirkland, I see Alvarez getting badly beaten.
And if he moves up in weight to the super middleweight division, I see him getting beaten by the top fighters up there like Andre Ward, Andre Dirrell, Carl Froch, Lucian Bute and Mikkel Kessler. I think it’s almost a given that Alvarez will fill out to 160 and higher. I think he’s going to fight as hard as he can to stay at or around the 160 pound class, because he won’t be competitive against any of the top fighters at super middleweight.
However, I think it’s going to be really hard for him to stay at middleweight because he’ll have to boil down each time he fights. This is why I think his future is really clouded right now. This may be as good as it gets right now while he’s still young and can squeeze into the welterweight division.
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