By Dan Ambrose: Since his 3rd round stoppage win over an over-matched and badly rusty James Kirkland (32-2, 28 KOs) in their fight this month, former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs) has been crowned as boxing’s next superstar fighter by many of his fans. But one person who isn’t ready to give the 24-year-old Mexican fighter the keys to the kingdom is ESPN commentator Teddy Atlas.
Atlas feels what the red-headed Canelo accomplished wasn’t that big of a deal because of how flawed a fighter that Kirkland was going into the fight. Atlas thinks that Kirkland was the prefect guy to make Canelo look good due to Kirkland’s poor defensive skills, and his fragile chin.
Atlas says that Kirkland would have needed his old trainer Ann Wolfe to be in the ring with him against Canelo to force him to move his head for him to have had a chance. But Atlas thinks that Kirkland would have lost the fight even if Wolfe had been the trainer on that night.
“Let’s not mistake Alvarez for Marvin Hagler,” Atlas said via ESPN. “I know a lot of people are going to get intoxicated, they’re going to get giddy. I understand it, and they’re his fans, but let’s not get carried away now because of this [Canelo’s win over Kirkland]. Kirkland was the perfect foil. Take nothing away from his [Canelo] performance. He did what he had to do but he was the perfect foil for Alvarez. Kirkland is a brave guy, but a guy too, too easy to hit and Alvarez took advantage of that,” Atlas said.
It’s hard to disagree with Atlas with his opinions about Canelo. He didn’t accomplish anything other than prove that he can beat a guy who is roughly at the same talent level as Alfredo Angulo, a fighter that Canelo defeated last year by a 10th round knockout. Both Angulo and Kirkland had to lose a great deal of weight to make the 155 pound catch-weight to fight Canelo.
While Atlas didn’t point it out, people have to wonder why Canelo isn’t being matched against the similar sized Gennady Golovkin. Both guys are about the same height and same weight. The only difference is that Canelo fights junior middleweights at a 155 pound catch-weight, which is technically in the middleweight division, whereas Golovkin fights fighters in the middleweight division. In other words, Golovkin isn’t looking to get a weight advantage over his opponents by him coming down to junior middleweight and then rehydrating to the 170s like what we’re seeing with Canelo.
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