Canelo Alvarez WON’T fight Artur Beterbiev says trainer Ramsey

By Boxing News - 07/03/2020 - Comments

By Sean Jones: Arter Beterbiev’s coach Marc Ramsay says Canelo Alvarez won’t ever fight the talented two-time Russian Olympian. Ramsay says it’s a different story for Canelo moving up to 175 to face Sergey Kovalev compared to fighting a dangerous guy like the unbeaten IBF/WBC light heavyweight champion Beterbiev (15-0, 15 KOs).

Beterbiev is now promoted by Top Rank, which makes it a little more complicated, setting up a fight with Canelo. It’s not impossible, though, as long as Canelo wants the fight with Beterbiev.

You’d be surprised at how many people believe that Canelo would beat Beterbiev just as easy as he did Sergey Kovalev. The fans say Beterbiev is slow, and Canelo would walk him down and stop him. Thur far, Canelo isn’t listening to his fans because he’s not given any indication that he plans on setting up a fight with the Beterbiev.

Boxing fans were hoping that Canelo would be willing to take the risk in fighting Beterbiev at 175 after he beat WBO champion Kovalev last November. A unification fight between Canelo and Beterbiev should have been the next logical move for the superstar boxer.

Canelo vacated WBO 175lb title without facing Beterbiev

Golden Boy Promotions call Canelo ‘The face of boxing,’ but he didn’t want to fight Beterbiev. Not long after winning the WBO 175-lb belt from the 36-year-old Kovalev last November, Canelo vacated it without defending it or facing any of the other champions in the weight class.

Image: Canelo Alvarez WON'T fight Artur Beterbiev says trainer Ramsey

It’s too bad for the boxing world that Canelo (53-1-2, 36 KOs) didn’t have the motivation or the willingness to take a real challenge and face Beterbiev. That’s a fight that many boxing fans would have been interested in

Sadly, instead of Canelo looking to face Beterbiev, he was recently attempting to put together a match against Billy Joe Saunders, a profoundly flawed super middleweight champion.  When you see Canelo trying to fight guys like Saunders instead of Beterbiev, it reinforces the belief that some fans have about the Mexican star being an opportunist. Another saying for that is ‘cherry-picker.’

“It won’t ever happen,” Ramsay said to Sky Sports on Canelo agreeing to fight Beterbiev. “I don’t believe he will fight my guy. Fighting Kovalev and fighting Beterbiev are two different stories.

“The thing with Beterbiev… every single punch hurts. The jab, a check left hook, just technical things but they still hurt. Everything he throws hurts,” said Ramsay.

Alvarez shouldn’t wait until Beterbiev gets old

Beterbiev is 35 right now and Canelo 29. If the Mexican star waits two or three years, he may be able to catch Beterbiev when he’s starting to show signs of age. We saw that scenario play out with Canelo and Gennadiy Golovkin. The Kazakhstan star wanted to fight Canelo earlier in his career when he was in his early 30s, but he didn’t get a fight with him until he was 35.

It was after Golovkin’s back to back lackluster performances against Kell Brook and Daniel Jacobs that Canelo finally agreed to fight him. Does that make Canelo an opportunist that he didn’t fight GGG until he was 35 and coming off two bad performances? The fans can draw their conclusion about that. It would seem to point in that direction.

Andre Ward also says that Canelo will never take a fight with Beterbiev, and he adds that Golden Boy Promotions boss Oscar De La Hoya wouldn’t let him. Ward states that Canelo fighting past his prime Sergey Kovalev was a calculated risk on his part. But if Alvarez chose to face Beterbiev at 175, that would be a stupid risk. In other words, Ward feels that Beterbiev would be too much for Canelo.

Image: Canelo Alvarez WON'T fight Artur Beterbiev says trainer Ramsey

Ward says Canelo WON’T fight Beterbiev

“Canelo took a calculated risk,” said Andre Ward to Fighthype last year Alvarez choosing to fight a washed-up Sergey Kovalev. “That’s not a calculated risk. That’s just stupid, and Canelo would never do that and Oscar [De La Hoya] would never do that,” said Ward about him fighting Beterbiev.

“Hat’s off to Beterbiev. A lot of punching power but he’s just physically strong. He’s a tough dude to deal with at 175. No,” said Ward when asked if Canelo can ‘hang’ with Beterbiev.

The trouble with Canelo taking a fight with Kovalev last November is he selected him as an opponent after his dreadfully bad effort against Anthony Yarde. Kovalev was almost knocked out by Yarde, who is a very, very raw fighter with not much stamina or skills.

YouTube video

Yarde came into the fight with Kovalev as a fighter with a lot of power, but no skills and zero experience. The fact that Kovalev was almost knocked out by Yarde shows how shot he was as a fighter. The timing of Canelo picking Kovalev after he looked terrible against Yarde is troubling.

Kovalev had also been beaten by Eleider Alvarez and Andre Ward twice before Canelo picked him out last November. Does that make Canelo an opportunist? You hate to say it, but it’s hard not to see him in that light.

Canelo can do better than Saunders

Hopefully, Canelo doesn’t continue to try and fight Saunders because it looks obvious that the Golden Boy star wants a fighter that isn’t a threat to beating him.

If Saunders is the type of opposition that Canelo is going to be facing at 168, then he needs to go on a diet and come back down to 160. At 168, Canelo should be fighting quality fighters like David Benavidez, Caleb Plant, and Daniel Jacobs.

Saunders has probably lost out on his shot at fighting Canelo now because of the pandemic. Unless Billy Joe is willing to take a cut in pay from the original offer that Golden Boy gave him to fight Alvarez earlier this year on May 2, then the fight won’t happen.

Image: Canelo Alvarez WON'T fight Artur Beterbiev says trainer Ramsey

American fans would prefer Canelo face someone other than Saunders because he’s already coming off a mismatch against Kovalev. A lot of fans thought that fight was fixed due to the way that Kovalev wasn’t fighting hard, and his punches were weak.

It looked to some people like Kovalev was taking it easy on Canelo through most of the fight. Only briefly in the 8th round did we see the old Kovalev show itself, and he had Canelo flying all over the ring, looking in sorry shape.

Casual boxing fans don’t follow the sport closely enough to know which fighter is good and which is paper champion. That’s why you argue that Canelo would be able to get away swerving around Beterbiev to take on a lesser foe in Saunder without receiving a lot of backlash from boxing fans.

Beterbiev interested in Buatsi and Yarde

Considering that Canelo probably won’t ever fight Beterbiev, the fans would like to see him fight the top 168-pound champions. At this point in Canelo’s career, he’s probably not going to return to the 160-pound division. That doesn’t mean Canelo will stop fighting middleweights, though.

He still wants to face Golovkin in a trilogy match at some point in 2021. It just means though that the middleweights that Canelo picks will need to come up to 168 to face him rather than him coming back down to 160.

“It is very possible when you look at how strong the division is in England. Anthony Yarde and Joshua Buatsi are promising challenges,” said Ramsay about Beterbiev potentially fighting in the UK in the future.

“I know the English fans would love Beterbiev’s offensive and spectacular style of boxing.”

Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn is keen on the idea of Beterbiev facing Joshua Buatsi, and that’s a fight he’ll make once it’s offered to him.

Image: Canelo Alvarez WON'T fight Artur Beterbiev says trainer Ramsey

Yarde (19-1, 18 KOs) wouldn’t be a good option because he’s too raw, and it wouldn’t be a great fight to see Beterbiev facing him. However, the UK boxing fans would be happy to see Beterbiev vs. Yarde.

There would be a lot of interest in that fight from fans in Great Britain, but not elsewhere in Canada or the U.S. Yarde isn’t rated highly by non-British fans.

He’s never beaten anyone good, and when he fought an over-the-hill Kovalev, he was knocked out with a jab in the 11th round in their fight in August 2019. Since that loss, Yarde has fought just once in beating journeyman Diego Jair Ramirez (4-49, 3 KOs).