Will Saul Alvarez face Angulo, Maidana or Kirkland next?

By Boxing News - 01/05/2013 - Comments

alvarez434By Dan Ambrose: It’s looking like WBC junior middleweight champion Sail “Canelo” Alvarez won’t be facing WBA junior middleweight champion Austin Trout next judging by the comments Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer made to Sports Illustrated writer Chris Mannix this past week on twitter.

It’s unclear whether Alvarez will be fighting on May 4th, the Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo or if he’ll be back in the ring in March against a still to be determined opponent. What does seem pretty obvious is that Alvarez won’t be facing the guy he arguably should be fighting in Austin Trout.

I don’t know why but it doesn’t look Schaefer is going to make that fight. If he doesn’t, then the options will be incredibly slim for Alvarez at 154. We’re talking really slim options because two of the best fighters in the division, Erislandy Lara and Vanes Martirosyan, are clearly not going to get a fight against Alvarez. No way will Golden Boy make that fight. Those guys are good, and Lara is especially a difficult opponent for someone as flat-footed as Alvarez.

We should hear something in the next two weeks about who Alvarez will be going up against in March or May, and I see it coming down to Alfredo Angulo, James Kirkland or Marcos Maidana. That’s who I see getting the fight.

Kirkland (31-1, 27 KO’s) – he hasn’t fought since having shoulder surgery early last year in his unimpressive 10th round disqualification win over Carlos Molina. Kirkland looked absolutely dreadful in that fight. If he had stayed busy and continued fighting – and winning – then I could see him getting the title shot against Alvarez, but he hasn’t fought since March of last year. If he got picked right now it would just look like Golden Boy is cherry picking a soft opponent to keep Alvarez from getting beaten.

Angulo (22-1, 18 KO’s) – is also a terrible choice for Alvarez. Angulo was stopped by Kirkand in the 6th round in November 2011. Angulo came back after missing an entire year and defeated little known Raul Casarez last November. In Angulo’s last fight, he looked really bad in beating Jorge Silva by a 10 round unanimous decision last month on December 15th. Angulo is just WAY too slow of hand and foot, and I don’t care who’s training the guy, he’s limited and won’t be winning a world title.

Maidana (33-3, 30 KO’s) – this would be another case of Canelo being matched against a smaller fighter from a weight division below him, as Maidana is a fighter that just moved up to welterweight from light welterweight, and if he faces Alvarez, he’d be moving up yet another division to face a guy that is much bigger than him. Maidana doesn’t have the size to compete even at welterweight, let alone junior middleweight. This would be a sad, sad pick if Golden Boy picked Maidana to fight Alvarez.



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