By Eric Thomas: WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez (36-0-1, 26 KO’s) reportedly wants to get back in the ring fast and wants to fight in June against a top contender. Alvarez, who will be turning 21 on July 18th, wants to face the biggest names in the sport such as Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao. However, those guys are probably not going to show any interest in fighting Alvarez until he becomes a much bigger name and starts looking more impressive. Alvarez defeated Matthew Hatton by a 12 round unanimous decision last weekend.
Alvarez won the fight by a lopsided decision but showed numerous flaws that would likely be exploited by the top contenders in the division. You can’t blame Alvarez for wanting to get a big fight against Mayweather or Pacquiao before he’s proven himself but he needs to focus on fighting better guys and proving he belongs as a champion.
The victory over Hatton was a rather hallow one for Alvarez because Hatton had never fought at junior middleweight and was able to leap frog over 15 top contenders in the division to get the fight with Alvarez. Hatton isn’t even considered all that good of a fighter in the welterweight division. Thus far, Alvarez’s opposition during his career has been pretty mediocre. His best opponents have been Lovemore N’dou, Carlos Baldomir [both 39-years-old] and Hatton.
If Alvarez takes on a top five contender in the division, he’ll be forced to fight guys like Alfredo Angulo, Paul Williams, Ryan Rhodes and Antonio Margarito. I think three of those guys would beat Alvarez at this point. I think he can beat Rhodes, which is who I’m betting he’ll fight next. But you can look for Alvarez to continue to try and get a big money fight against Mayweather and Pacquiao to get a big money fight before Alvarez loses his ‘0’ and gets exposed.
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