By Dan Ambrose: Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (50-2-1, 32 KOs) sees Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (48-1-1, 34 KOs) as a fighter that doesn’t have his feet on the ground as far his big ego goes, and he plans on putting his feet back on solid earth when he fights him next month in their fight on May 6 on HBO pay-per-view. Chavez Jr. thinks Canelo is too cocky and he thinks he believes he’s going to easily win their fight, but he’s got something in store for him.
Chavez Jr. thinks it’s going to be the toughest fight of the 27-year-old Canelo’s 10-year pro career. Canelo has already lost to Floyd Mayweather Jr. , and he almost lost to Austin Trout and Erislandy Lara. The judges scored the fights in Canelo’s favor, but he could have easily lost both of those fights.
“I know that Canelo’s team may be thinking, that it’s going to be an easy fight. But it will be the other way around. It will be the most difficult of his career,” said Chavez Jr. to Fightnews.com.
Chavez Jr. might need to really give Canelo a clear beating in this fight because there’s a big fight that the boxing world wants to see between him and middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in September. If the Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight is anywhere close, it could swing in Canelo’s favor on May 6. You have to remember that Chavez Jr. is the B-side fighter in this promotion. Chavez was a guy whose career was considered to be over with by many boxing fans.
Chavez Jr. was picked out by Golden Boy Promotions, the promoters for the redheaded Mexican star Canelo, to face him rather than matching him against Gennady Golovkin. Chavez Jr. is not supposed to win this fight against Canelo, which is obviously why he was picked out. Chavez Jr. has done nothing since beating Andy Lee in 2012. Chavez Jr. lost to Sergio Martinez in September 2012, and from that point on, he drifted with his boxing career doing nowhere. When your career is not going well like Chavez Jr’s career, it’s sometimes hard to get decisions against the top guys.
My thoughts are that Chavez Jr. might need a knockout of Canelo for him to get the ‘W’ in this fight because I don’t think the judges will give him the win by a decision. I don’t see it happening. If you saw Canelo’s controversial 12 round split decision win over Erislandy Lara in 2014, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Canelo landed only 31 head shots in the entire 12-round fight against Lara, and yet he was given the win. I had Lara winning the 8 rounds to 4. I couldn’t give Canelo more than 4 rounds. Boxing News 24 scored the fight 9 rounds to 3 in favor or Lara.
Chavez Jr. points out that Canelo was given a huge break by the World Boxing Council in being given the opportunity to fight for their vacant WBC junior middleweight title in March 2011 against fringe welterweight contender Matthew Hatton rather than one of the WBC’s top 15 contenders at the time. For some reason, the WBC allowed Canelo to fight Matthew Hatton for the vacant WBC 154lb title instead of one of the more deserving contenders from the junior middleweight division.
Canelo beat the light hitting Hatton by a wide 12 round unanimous decision in a noncompetitive fight. But the WBC’s decision to allow Canelo to fight a fringe contender from the 147lb weight class raised some eyebrows from boxing fans. A lot of people didn’t understand the WBC’s rationale at the time to let Canelo fight a welterweight for the vacant WBC 154lb title instead of a contender. There were arguably a lot better fighters in the welterweight division for Canelo to have fought for the vacant WBC junior middleweight title if the idea was that he fight a welterweight.
“He forgot when the WBC gave him the opportunity to fight with Matthew Hatton, even though Hatton wasn’t from that weight division,” said Chavez Jr.
Keith Thurman wants Manny Pacquiao fight
WBA/WBC welterweight champion Keith “One Time” Thurman (28-0, 22 KOs) says he wants to fight WBO 147lb champion Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao (59-6-2, 38 KOs) in a unification fight. Thurman, 28, wants that fight quite a bit, and he’s hoping that Pacquiao, 38, will agree to make the contest happen.
Pacquiao has a title defense coming up on July 2 against #2 IBF, #2 WBO Jeff Horn (16-0-1, 11 KOs) at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, Australia. That’s a fight that Pacquiao should win. His promoter Bob Arum is the one that wanted that fight to happen. Arum is pretty much the guiding force for Pacquiao’s career right now. If Arum wants Pacquiao to fight Thurman, then the fight will have a good chance of happening. However, judging by Arum’s recent comments about Thurman, I’d have to say the chances are not good that he’ll be getting a fight against Pacquiao in this lifetime.
”I’m ready to put my hands on him,” said Thurman to tmz.com about a fight against Pacquiao.
Here’s what Arum said about a fight between Pacquiao and Keith Thurman to Fighthub.com:
“This is totally for boxing schmucks,” said Arum when asked if he would match Pacquiao against Thurman, Errol Spence or Kell Brook. “Who the hell cares about a unification or no unification. If Thurman said it to you, then he said it to you,” said Arum when told that Thurman is interested in fighting Pacquiao. “He never said it to us. We never talked to Thurman. People use you and say things that are just not so. If Thurman wanted to do the fight, he knows to call Al Haymon,” said Arum.
Arum was really animated when he was talking about Thurman. He looked upset for some reason. However, it’s not likely that the 85-year-old Arum is going to be matching Pacquiao up with Thurman before he soon retires from boxing. Arum has matched Pacquiao against his own Top Rank fighters Jessie Vargas and Tim Bradley in his last 2 fights. Pacquiao’s next fight is against Jeff Horn. If Pacquiao doesn’t retire after the Horn fight, it’s possible he could fight light welterweight champion Terence Crawford. He’s one of Arum’s fighters too.
Thurman says he’s interested in fighting a rematch against former 2 division world champion Danny Garcia, who he beat by a 12 round split decision last month on March 4 on Showtime Championship Boxing. Garcia wants a rematch, and the fight did good numbers in terms of ratings on Showtime. A rematch between them should be big.
“I did it one time. We can do it two times!” said Thurman about a second fight against Danny Garcia.
One fighter that Thurman doesn’t appear to be in a hurry to face is Errol Spence Jr. Thurman wants that fight to marinate before he takes that. Thurman is curious to see how Spence does in his next fight against IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook on May 27 next month at Bramall Lane in Sheffield, England. Thurman thought previously that Spence would have problems with Leonard Bundu in their fight last August. Thurman had problems beating Bundu a couple of years ago. Spence made it look easy in stopping Bundu in a 6th round knockout at Coney Island, New York.