By Dan Ambrose: Former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs) came out of the woodwork last night following IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin’s superb 6th round knockout victory over Willie Monroe Jr. (19-2, 6 KOs) in Inglewood, California.
Canelo said that when he does move up to the 160 pound division, he’ll be taking on the top fighters, but he doesn’t see anyone that can compete with him. Canelo didn’t mention any names, but obviously he was including the likes of Golovkin, Miguel Cotto, Peter Quillin, Andy Lee, Billy Joe Saunders and Daniel Jacobs. Those are some tough middleweights, and clearly all better than the guy that Canelo just beat a week ago in James Kirkland.
“When the day comes for me to move up to 160 I will face the best in the division. Sincerely and with humility I don’t see any real competition for me. Greetings to everyone!” Canelo said on his twitter.
This remark by Canelo makes him sound bitter. You have to wonder whether he was upset by Golovkin calling him out on national TV on HBO last night. HBO commentator Max Kellerman asked Golovkin who he wants to face, and he said “No, not for the future. I’m ready right now! I’m ready for Canelo and Cotto.”
The boxing fans at ringside immediately started cheering Golovkin and chanting his name over and over again. That’s got hurt Canelo. Canelo can keep saying that he’s fighting in the 154 pound division, but the fact that his last three fights have taken place at middleweight with him fighting at catch-weights of 155, it tells you that he’s already a middleweight whether he wants to admit it or not.
Canelo wants to fight WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto next, and that’s a fight that would take place at middleweight as well. It would be four straight fights at middleweight for Canelo. But even if Canelo wants to continue saying that he’s not fighting at middleweight, boxing fans see the junior middleweight and middleweight divisions as essentially one division. They don’t see there being any real barriers between them. So when Golovkin as seen beating the stuffing out of all his competition at 160, it gives boxing fans the impression that he’s the best fighter from 154 to 160. Then it puts Canelo and Cotto in a one down position where they’re seen as secondary fighters, especially when they choose to fight over-matched opposition like James Kirkland and Daniel Geale. Golovkin destroyed Geale in 3 rounds in 2014. It’s unclear why Cotto would even bother wanting to fight Geale after the way that Golovkin beat him. It makes Cotto look like a scavenger to some boxing fans by picking Golovkin’s leftovers for sloppy seconds.
So the question is was Canelo bitter last night at seeing the applause and love that the fans and HBO were giving to Golovkin after his win over Willie Monroe? Why would Canelo lash out with a twitter post saying that “I don’t see any real competition for me” at 160? How can a fighter that has been exposed again and again like Canelo say that he doesn’t see any real competition at middleweight? Comments like that from Canelo give the impression that he’s either bitter or in denial. I think it’s more of the former rather than the latter. Golovkin was getting a lot of love from the fans and the HBO commenters last night, and it totally erased the appreciation that Canelo got from his mismatch against a ring rusty Kirkland a week earlier.
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