(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Dan Ambrose: In what makes a strong case that Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (43-1-1, 31 KO’s) should be fighting at middleweight or better yet super middleweight, Canelo reportedly stepped inside the ring last Saturday night at 174 lbs for his bout against Alfredo Angulo (22-4, 18 KO’s) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
In contrast, WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin recently weighed 170 lbs for one of his title defenses at middleweight. In other words, Canelo out-weighed even a middleweight champion like Golovkin. What does that tell you? It tells me that Canelo is way too heavy to be fighting in the junior middleweight division. He reminds me a lot of how former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. would drain down a massive amount of weight to fight smaller middleweights and have a huge weight advantage over them come fight time.
The weight obviously wasn’t the reason why Canelo halted the slow as molasses and incredibly weak looking Angulo in the 10th round, but it does suggest that Canelo needs to think about moving up to another weight class to fight in either the 160 or 168 lb divisions.
Canelo weighed in at 155 lbs last Friday night and had the weight limit for his junior middleweight fight moved to middleweight at 155. For the secondary weigh-in, which was requested by team Angulo, Canelo weighed 166 lbs [super middleweight] at 3:00 p.m. PT last Saturday. He then re-hydrated up an incredible 8 lbs to come into the fight at 174 against Angulo.
For fans not up on weight classes, that’s one away from the upper limit of the light heavyweight division. We’re not talking junior middleweight here; we’re talking three divisions above the 154 lb division in coming in at 174. Canelo was basically 2 points away from being a cruiserweight last night.
Like I said, Canelo’s weight had nothing to do with him beating Angulo last night, because I think Golden Boy Promotions could have brought out light welterweight Lucas Matthysse or Danny Garcia and they would have beaten Angulo just as easily due to his strange lack of power. As bad as Angulo looked last night, I think even Canelo’s older brother Ricardo Alvarez would have beaten him last night, and Ricardo was dominated by Sergio Thompson last night in a 10 round loss. Angulo had absolutely nothing, and he was punching more like a flyweight than a junior middleweight for some reason. What happened to his power is anyone’s guess. But he reminded me of how weak Oscar De La Hoya looked when he drained himself to fight Manny Pacquiao in 2008 after going on a crash diet.
Golden Boy Promotions wants to make Canelo a PPV star, and I doubt his fight with Angulo brought in good numbers. But I think they’re going to keep Canelo at junior middleweight because it gives him a huge advantage over his opponent, especially with Canelo being matched against welterweights so frequently.
Canelo won’t be getting another fight against welterweight Floyd Mayweather Jr., and Manny Pacquiao is obviously off his radar screen due to him being with Top Rank. I don’t see any point in Canelo staying in the junior middleweight division if he’s not going to fight Erislandy Lara, who is considered to be one of the top 3 contenders in the division. If the whole idea for Canelo to stay at junior middleweight is for him to fight mostly welterweights with an occasional badly flawed junior middleweight like Angulo or Austin Trout to be matched up against him, then that’s not a good deal for fans because Canelo isn’t fighting quality opposition and/or guys his own size. He needs to move up to the middleweight division and face Golovkin or Peter Quillin. I would say he should fight Sergio Martinez, but that guy is breaking down physically from old age and it’s no longer and interesting fight.
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