By Dan Ambrose: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) will be presented his WBC middleweight title this Monday in Mexico City, Mexico, according to ESPN. Canelo’s promoters at Golden Boy will be there as will his trainer Chepo and Eddy Reynoso. This is the catch-weight WBC title that Canelo won last November in beating the smaller Miguel Cotto (40-5, 33 KOs) at 155lb catch-weight rather than at the full weight for the middleweight division at 160lbs.
It’s kind of troubling that Canelo was allowed to win the WBC middleweight title at a catch-weight of 155bs rather than fighting at the full weight for the division. The WBC needs to create a rule change that prevents catch-weights that involve world title fights, because it’s too easy to game the system with the whole catch-weight business.
You don’t see catch-weights being used in the NFL, NBA or in other professional sports. It just cheapens the sport of boxing in my view to see the catch-weights being used in championship level fights. If fighters want to use catch-weights, then it should with no title on the line and it being a fight that does not count in terms of rankings or on fighters’ record. In other words, catch-weight fights should be just for exhibition fights only.
The victory now puts Canelo in the hot-seat as the WBC middleweight champion, because he’s now expected to defend his title against mandatory challenger Gennady Golovkin in 2016. It’s still unclear if that fight will ever happen though, because if Canelo insists on fighting at 155lbs, which is his favorite catch-weight as of late, Golovkin could balk at the idea and say no.
In this case, Canelo will need to vacate his WBC title and give it up to Golovkin if he refuses to budge at the idea of giving a weight handicap to the Mexican superstar. Of course, the World Boxing Council could step in and save the day for Canelo by meeting with their committee and electing to change the rules for their WBC champions by allowing them to use catch-weights for ALL of their fights, not just for voluntary defenses.
Many fans would hate to see something like that occur, but believe me, it’s quite possible. The WBC can create rules as they go along if the other members in their organization are willing to vote in favor of it. If that happens, Canelo would be able to force Golovkin to agree to the 155lb catch-weight. If he didn’t agree to it, then the WBC could remove Golovkin as the #1 mandatory Canelo and instead push Jorge Sebastian Heiland as the new #1 mandatory challenger. I think Heiland would likely agree in a second to fight Canelo at 155lbs, because the payday would likely be too good for him to turn it down.
ESPN recently voted Canelo as their ‘fighter of the year’ for 2015 for his wins over Cotto and James Kirkland. It created kind of an uproar among fans because Kirkland wasn’t an active fighter. He was just some guy that had put on a great deal of weight while sitting out of the boxing ring for almost two years since his last fight in 2013. Kirkland was selected to fight Canelo based on some unknown criteria.
A victory over Kirkland should have meant pretty much zero, given his inactivity. So in other words, Canelo was given the 2015 fighter of the year award by ESPN for beating 35-year-old Cotto. For fans that saw the fight, they noticed immediately how much larger and heavier looking Canelo was compared to Cotto.
Canelo appeared to win the fight based on size alone rather than talent, because the fight was a very close one despite the ridiculous scores handed down by the three judges that worked the fight. I had Canelo winning by a very narrow score. If the two fighters had been at the same exact weight on the night of the fight, I think Cotto would have easily one and perhaps by knockout. But it just looked like he was giving away 15-20 pounds to Canelo on the night of the fight, and there was no way that Cotto could overcome such a huge weight advantage that Canelo appeared to possess.
Canelo will be fighting on May 7h against a still to be determined opponent in Las Las Vegas, Nevada. The names that have been mentioned as possibilities are Willie Monroe Jr. and Gabriel Rosado.
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