By Dan Ambrose: Former world title challenger Gabriel Rosado thinks former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs) is a genuine 100% middleweight at this point in his career, but he thinks that he’s afraid to admit it because he’s trying to run a game so that he can avoid fighting the bigger middleweights.
Rosado doesn’t say who the bigger middleweights are, but you would have to assume that IBF/IBO/WBA champion Gennady Golovkin and Peter Quillin are two guys that he has in mind. Rosado believes that after Canelo faces WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (40-4, 33 KOs) on November 21st, he’ll then say he’s not a middleweight afterwards.
Rosado doesn’t say it directly, but it seems like he’s heading in the direction of Canelo then vacating the WBC 160lb title rather than facing the hard hitting Golovkin and suffering a knockout loss or a one-sided decision defeat.
“Canelo, I think he struggles to make 54, but he acts like he doesn’t,” Rosado said to esnewsreporting. “I think he really is a middleweight, but he tried to act like he’s not a middleweight to possibly avoid the big middleweights. He kind of wants to worm his way up to the middleweight division. So he’s going to fight Cotto at 55, and then run some game ‘I’m not really a middleweight. I’m not a junior middleweight, so I’m going to fight at 56.’ Stop the bull-[expletive]. You’re either a middleweight or a junior middleweight. We’ve got to make a title now for 157. It’s business, man,” Rosado said.
It’s hard to argue that Canelo isn’t a middleweight, given that he’s been rehydrating to as high as 175lbs after making weight for his catch-weight fights at 155 for the past two years. Golovkin rehydrates to 170lbs, and he doesn’t waste time melting down to 155 for catch-weight handicaps or to fight smaller guys at 154. Golovkin isn’t afraid to fight at middleweight. He’s obviously not one of the bigger middleweights like Peter Quillin, but he’s not afraid to face someone who potentially outweighs him by 10 pounds like Quillin would.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yMrjFL7LKs
It would make Canelo look really bad if he vacates the WBC middleweight title upon beating Cotto next month. I’m not sure whether Canelo realizes that or not, because he might be assuming that the casual boxing fans wouldn’t have a clue that he vacated the WBC title.
The fans with scant knowledge of the sport would be looking to see Canelo fight just based on his name rather than on what goes on behind the scenes in boxing. But the hardcore fans would likely not be too pleased if Canelo vacated his WBC 160lb title and gave the excuse that he’s not a real middleweight despite him rehydrating to a higher weight than Golovkin by coming in at 175.
It’s unknown why Canelo keeps fighting at catch-weights of 155lbs rather than him just going up to the full weight for the middleweight division. Rosado obviously believes that Canelo has a hard time getting down to 154 due to all the weight that he has to take off to get to that weight. It’s hard to argue with that, because if it wasn’t a problem for him, Canelo would be fighting at 154 each time out rather than him not fighting in the junior middleweight division since his fight with Mayweather two years ago.
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