By Dan Ambrose: Floyd Mayweather Jr. (45-0, 26 KO’s) was being very gracious with former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-1-1, 30 KO’s) after his one-sided 12 round majority decision over the red-headed fighter last Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Despite having clowned Canelo for 12 rounds, Mayweather was busy trying to remake Canelo’s image after the fight by saying that the 23-year-old will wind up being a boxing legend before his career is over.
Mayweather Jr. said “I want to commend this young, strong lion because he will carry the torch…Canelo has everything it takes to be a legend in the sport…He threw a hell of a thigh shot. It was a good shot. I’m walking with a limp right now.”
There are just too many unknowns in Canelo’s future for anyone to predict that he’ll be the one to carry the torch or whether he’ll wind up as a legend. Right now Canelo’s career has been based on him fighting welterweights while in the junior middleweight division. That’s not what legends do.
Canelo needs to start fighting guys his own size or at least he needs to start fighting middleweights. They might be smaller than him too, but that’s a good start because Canelo fighting welterweights instead of guys from his own weight class isn’t really sporting.
There are a lot of unknowns in Canelo’s future for when he is forced to move up to the middleweight division. How will Canelo do against the best fighter in that division Gennedy Golokvin. Will Canelo take that fight or will be duck it until Golovkin is over the hill. If Canelo does take the fight with Golovkin, how will he do? I don’t think Canelo has the boxing skills to stay in there with Golovkin for 12 rounds, and I could see Canelo taking a really bad beating in that fight.
It’ll look bad if Canelo moves up to 160 and chooses to not to fight Golovkin, but that’s what I’m expecting. It would be a fight where Canelo wouldn’t have a weight advantage over Golovkin, and he also wouldn’t have the power advantage either because Golovkin hits harder than Canelo. With no advantages, Canelo could be in deep trouble against Golovkin. I think Canelo can forget about being a legend if he loses to Golovkin, and he can forget about being a legend if he ducks a fight with Golovkin.
Comments are closed.