By Cameron Gillon: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KOs) has said that when he lost to Floyd Mayweather Jr in September 2013 for a while he thought about having a rematch potentially one day to try and right the wrong, but nowadays is more focused on building his own status as a pay-per-view fighter.
Canelo faced Mayweather last September at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada and got beat decisively in a 12 round unanimous loss and you can argue he didn’t win one round. Canelo looked very bad in the fight. Weight drained or not he had completely the wrong game plan and looked lost from the 3rd round. As soon as Floyd got the feel of Canelo, Floyd didn’t lose a step.
I feel if a rematch did happen between Canelo and Mayweather, Canelo would do better with a new game plan but would still get beat. Canelo isn’t a pay-per-view superstar of boxing just yet, whilst Floyd is around Canelo will always be behind in his shadow. It’s smart for Canelo not to be thinking of fighting Mayweather again, as another loss would make Canelo look very bad. He is still rebuilding from that loss.
Since the Mayweather fight, Canelo has faced Alfredo Angulo in a pretty comfortable 10th round TKO victory for Canelo, but one you would feel he was always going to win. Canelo then faced Erislandy Lara last July in a close fight, but one I felt Canelo deserved the nod, Lara would have got the win if he was involved more. He was throwing a punches and was then on his toes and going to the other side of the ring and you’re not going to get a decision win over Canelo by doing that.
Canelo needs to beat a good fighter and look good doing it to get some more fans behind him. He struggles with fighters with a good skill set in being able to throw fast combinations and move and slick about. Canelo is a fighter and will throw hard hitting combinations but won’t box as much.
Canelo tried to box Floyd and it was a chess match fight but Canelo looked like he just learnt how to box the week prior to the fight as he seemed to have no clue to what to do to win the fight and neither did his team. Canelo should face James Kirkland next and a knockout win there would make Canelo look a lot better, or face WBO junior middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade.
Canelo has outgrown the light middleweight division now, as he struggles to make the 154 limit and can’t continue to have catch-weight fighters for the rest of his career. Sooner or later he is going to have to move up to middleweight and fight the likes of Miguel Cotto, Gennady Golovkin, Peter Quillin and so on.
Canelo is likely facing Joshua Clottey in a non PPV fight in December. This is a mismatch fight and one you feel Canelo has to win comfortably or else he is going to look bad once again. To be honest, he is still yet to prove he has what it takes to be the next guy to take over from Mayweather as the king of pound for pound.
Canelo and Cotto are likely going to have a big mega-fight in May 2015. Whether it will be for the middleweight 160 WBC title or Cotto vacates and moves back down to face Canelo is a unanswered question right now.
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