By Dan Ambrose: Unbeaten junior middleweight contender Julian Williams (22-0, 14 KOs) says he doesn’t like how WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez is fighting at catch-weights. He does not agree with Canelo holding the WBC middleweight and then expecting his opponents to fight him at 155lbs rather than at 160.
Williams thinks Canelo is trying to create his own weight class by fighting at 155 and then using his clout to get his opponents to fight him at this weight. Williams thinks that Canelo should either defend his WBC title at the full weight of 160lbs against his mandatory challenger Gennady “GGG” Golovkin or he should vacate the belt.
I don’t think Canelo is too bothered about what some boxing fans are fighters are saying about him. The only people who comment about Canelo and his catch-weights he’s been fighting at are knowledgeable fans or fighters. The casual fans only know Canelo from watching his fights or seeing the highlights in the commercials on HBO. They’re not taking the time to find out enough about Canelo to know that he’s been fighting at the 155lb catch-weight since 2014.
“It seems like he’s not ready to fight Triple G. But don’t win the title and then not want to fight the mandatory,” said Williams to Fighthype.com. “You can’t win that belt and not want to fight the #1 guy there and then tell him he has to come down to 155. No, 155 is not middleweight. 160 is middleweight. History has it. Canelo is not bigger than the sport of boxing. He’s not bigger than the legacy of the middleweight division,” said Williams.
I think Canelo is going to keep fighting at 155 unless the World Boxing Council steps in and forces him to fight Golovkin at 160. If that happens, then I see Canelo taking the nuclear approach by vacating his WBC title and leaving it for Golovkin to pick up outside of the ring.
At some point, Canelo will be too big to fight at catch-weights. He’ll have to move up to the 160lb limit whether he wants to or not. Hopefully, Canelo takes the mature approach and doesn’t play games by creating a new catch-weight of 156, 157, 158 or 159. What we don’t want is increasing catch-weights for the remainder of Canelo’s career.
That would be really sad if he grew into the light heavyweight division, but then insisted on his opponents to weigh-in at 169 or 170 instead of at the full weight for the light heavyweight division.
“He [Canelo] got to step up and fight or vacate,” said Williams. “If you win the middleweight title, fight the #1 contender; that’s it. I get he’s a big star and he’s a big ticket, but I don’t like the fact that boxing is letting this guy create his own weight class. I know they are trying to transition him into this pay-per-view star and I get it, but he’s not bigger than boxing.”
I think Canelo has learned from Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. to use catch-weights to his advantage in his fights. Mayweather really didn’t use a lot of catch-weights during his career. It was Manny Pacquiao who used the catch-weights to his advantage.
Canelo will be fighting Amir Khan on May 7 on HBO pay-per-view from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Khan was selected from the welterweight division for Canelo to fight at a catch-weight of 155lbs. Canelo has taken more than a little heat about fighting a welterweight instead of making his first defense of his WBC title against a middleweight.
Canelo can defuse the criticism later this year if he turns around and fights Golovkin at the full weight for the middleweight division. But if Canelo chooses to vacate his WBC title or if the World Boxing council votes to allow Canelo to use the 155lb catch-weight for the Golovkin fight, then it’ll create even more criticism of the Mexican star.
Williams fought last Saturday and stopped Marcello Matano in the 7th round in their IBF junior middleweight title eliminator bout. Williams is now the mandatory challenger to IBF champion Jermall Charlo. He’s really looking forward to that fight. Charlo hasn’t made any public statements about when he’ll be defending his belt against Williams. It’ll be a good fight once it takes place. You’d have to favor Charlo right now because he’s fighting at such a high level and has excellent punching power.
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