By Allan Fox: Young Mexican superstar Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) addressed his “haters” tonight by reminding them that he won ESPN’s ‘Fighter of the Year’ for 2015, along with ‘KO of the Year.’
Canelo, 25, reminded his critics of these facts on his Twitter account tonight, as if these things somehow validate his 10-year pro career rather than it being a subjective pick by a small handful of ESPN writers. Next year, hopefully ESPN selects a fighter with some better credentials than Canelo’s because his wins during the year weren’t that big of a deal.
In 2015, Canelo beat James Kirkland and Miguel Cotto. Kirkland was a fighter that was a decent but flawed contender many years ago, but he’s become largely inactive for the last five years.
Being given the ‘Fighter of the Year’ award for 2015 for a victory over Kirkland is kind of a sad commentary on the selection process for their awards. Canelo’s win over Cotto would have meant more if there had been a way to even the weights of the two fighters, because Canelo looked like a 185-pound fighter facing a 160lb fighter in Cotto. I thought Canelo had at least a 20-pound weight advantage over Cotto, which kind of takes away the luster from the win for Canelo.
Beating Cotto and Kirkland didn’t impress me at all with Canelo. Now if Canelo had beaten Gennady Golovkin and Tureano Johnson, then I would definitely be impressed, because those are high quality fighters. Kirkland is too inactive at this point in his career, and Cotto is just a small pumped up welterweight who doesn’t even belong in the junior middleweight division. If you throw Cotto in the ring with IBF 154lb champion Jermall Charlo or Demetrius Andrade, I see bad things happening to Cotto. Those guys would likely hurt the smaller Cotto and then go for the knockout.
Canelo has definitely picked up some haters in the last two years of his career, but I think he could easily turn the haters to fans if he stopped fighting at catch-weights like he’s been doing since 2013.
If Canelo would just fight at the traditional weight for the middleweight or junior middleweight divisions, he would win over a lot of his haters. One of the biggest issues that Canelo’s detractors have with him is they see him as a spoiled brat, who uses his popularity to his advantage by using catch-weights and then rehydrating up in weight to be bigger than his opponents. If Canelo would fight in the correct division that is appropriate to his huge weight, I think the boxing fans would respect him more.
If Canelo is weighing in the 180s after he rehydrates, then I think it makes sense for him to fight at 168 in the super middleweight division, because the fighters in that division rehydrate into the 180s for their fights. Canelo would obviously be giving away some height to the super middleweights, but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem for him because WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham is 5’9” like Canelo, and he’s a world champion in the 168lb division. If Abraham can fight at 168 and hold down a world title, then Canelo can surely do the same thing.
Comments are closed.