By Dan Ambrose: WBC president Jose Sulaiman wants WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-0-1, 30 KO’s) to wait until next year before he faces unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. (44-0, 26 KO’s) in a mega fight. Sulaiman, who is really fond of the orange-haired Mexican fighter, doesn’t think he’s ready to beat the 36-year-old Mayweather right now, but if he waits until Mayweather is 37, Sulaiman thinks he’ll have a better chance at beating him.
Sulaiman said to the record.com.mx “Alvarez should wait two more fights before going against Mayweather. Canelo will be more experienced and Floyd will be another year older and it would be a competitive fight. At this time I do not advise it.”
It seems almost like Sulaiman wants Canelo to win rather than being neutral about it. What Sulaiman should be advising is for Canelo to start fighting guys in his own weight level, like Andre Ward, Carl Froch and Mikkel Kessler.
Those guys fight at super middleweight and Canelo came into his last fight weighing 172 lbs. Mayweather’s top weight is 150 lbs. when he steps inside the ring, which means Canelo would have a 22 pound weight advantage over Mawyeather if they fought now. For boxing fans who aren’t knowledgeable about what it’s like for smaller guys to fight guys that are over 20 pounds heavier than them, I don’t expect them to understand what I’m talking about.
This part of the article will be lost on them because they understand weights and weight classes, but for fans who understand that the weight classes were made for a reason to make the sport fair, they’ll understand that Canelo should be looking to fight guys that weight as much as him.
In that case, Canelo should be looking to fight Andre Ward. Right now, I’d just be happy to see Canelo fight WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golokvin. That would be a fight where Canelo would still have a weight advantage and he’s have no problems putting the fight together because Golovkin already said he wants to fight Canelo.
I don’t like the idea of Sulaiman advising Canelo to wait Mayweather out until he’s older because that just looks like a cherry picking move to me. With Canelo’s huge weight advantage over Mayweather, he should be ready to face him right now.
After all, having that kind of weight advantage over Canelo would be the equivalent of Canelo fighting WBO cruiserweight champion Marco Huck. That would be a sick mismatch if that fight were to happen. Huck punches way too hard for Canelo and with his 22 pound weight advantage, Huck would make quick work of Canelo.