How Golden Boy ruined Canelo Alvarez

By Boxing News - 10/13/2013 - Comments

canelo89By Eric Johnson: A couple of months ago, right after “The One” was announced. I wrote an article titled “Canelo’s Instant Fan base”, which you can revisit with this link. http://www.boxingnews24.com/2013/06/canelos-instant-fan-base/. It was an article about how at time Mexican fighters are thought out to be the next great Mexican champion. Prematurely given the torch, well before proving themselves worthy.

I stressed that every Mexican fighter isn’t the next Chavez, Sanchez or Olivaras. I remember in 2011, when Victor Ortiz was the hottest Welterweight in the fight game. He was coming off fight of the year against then undefeated titlist Andre Berto. He was the champion and had all the confidence in the world when he went up against Floyd Mayweather Jr. In the end, he succumbed to the moment and left with a loss. This past September we watched Canelo Alvarez fall to the same fate, and there is no one but Golden Boy Promotions to blame. Here’s why.

First and foremost, I’m not fan of Canelo Alvarez but I can admit that he is very skilled, not in an elite sense but still very skilled. He has a very rare blend of hand speed, size and power, and before September 14 2013, it seemed like he was the real deal. It seemed as if even if he couldn’t beat Floyd, he’d get to him. He was enough of a proposed threat that he and Mayweather together were able to draw an estimated 2.2 million buys in the country. Prior to that fight, he stopped Josesito Lopez, and picked up two decision wins over Mosley and Trout. Impressive right? No. It’s not impressive. Let’s take a closer look. He fought Shane Mosley, who honestly gave him all he could handle. He didn’t just walk through Mosley. He didn’t beat him any better than Mayweather or Pacquiao did. He went 12 rounds with an aging Mosley. Don’t get me wrong, Mosley has an ATG chin. However he could have and should have beat him a lot worse than he did. Then Canelo fought Josesito Lopez who just prior to fighting at 154, was fighting at 140. He only went up to 147 because Kendall Holt pulled out of a fight with him, and Victor Ortiz needed an opponent. Nonetheless the stoppage was emphatic. The only problem is that we saw Marcos Maidana do it better shortly after. He stopped Lopez just as good as Canelo did, with even less of a weight advantage than Canelo had. Canelo then beat Austin Trout, who beat Cotto, who loss to Floyd. Trout isn’t a bum, but Trout isn’t an A level fighter. Not even close to being in the same class as Floyd Mayweather, nonetheless he beat him by a shady decision from some outrageous open scorecards. I had Canelo winning, but not by anything more than 3 rounds. So what happens when a fighter keeps winning and winning, gathering more and more hype before it’s justified? He grows confidence, which can be a death sentence if it’s built off fabricated achievements.

Watching the lead up to “The One”, Canelo showed true confidence. In the press conferences, and the all access show episodes. He wasn’t just talking like he was there for a paycheck. He legitimately thought he would win. The way he went in front of the crowd, screaming “Viva Mexico” and how he thought it’d be a tough fight that he was undoubtedly win. How he and his corner reiterated time and time again that it was “his time”.

He was on the record saying that he thought he had the skill to outbox Mayweather and that’s what he tried to do on fight night. The problem is, I don’t even think he knows what his skill level is. He’s been fed so many past prime, undersized fighters, and then a good fighter in Trout (which he won, but the scorecards were questionable) and then the best fighter of the generation in Floyd. He’s been thrown in and fed D Level fighters, which made him look better than he is. And might have made him believe he is better than he is. Then he fights Floyd and realizes that he may not be as good as he thought he was. I think after he was outclassed and saw how easily he was handled, he realized more than ever that he was a product of very careful matchmaking.

It’s hard to determine his ceiling, because we don’t even know where he’s standing now. I can’t blame Floyd Mayweather for taking the fight, because it’s a fight that Canelo Alvarez, and the public were clamoring for. I’m not sure if he can recover from that, because he didn’t just receive a loss, he received a wakeup call. A wakeup call that was long overdue and far too powerful to receive in one night. It’d be different if he received that call on the way up the mountain, but he received it at the top, at the pinnacle. He got the call on the biggest stage of his life, of his career, and possibly the biggest stage he’ll ever be on in his boxing career. I hope he can recover, because I’d hate to see a talent go down the drain because of premature praise. It’ll be hard to do, because confidence like that can’t just be returned once you know it had no business there in the first place. The first thing he needs to do is get some quality wins over some quality competition. We can only hope that Golden Boy didn’t ruin promising prospect. But he might be down for the count.



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