By Dan Ambrose: Canelo Alvarez says he views Errol Spence Jr as a “great fighter” and he would be interested possibly in a fight against him “later” if they could overcome the weight. Spence (26-0, 21 KOs) is still fighting at 147, and Canelo is campaigning at 168.
It’s not realistic to assume that Canelo will return to 160 for a fight against Spence, Gennady Golovkin, or anyone at this point. For Spence to have a shot at fighting Canelo (53-1-2, 36 KOs), he’ll need to move up three divisions to meet Canelo at super-middleweight.
“Spence is a great fighter. The weight is very difficult, but we’ll see later. He is a great fighter,” said Canelo on Tuesday when asked about fighting Spence.
The weight between Canelo and Spence is too wide for a fight between them to happen without it being a title mismatch. Spence had problems in his last fight against Shawn Porter last year in September.
For Spence to go up 21 pounds to face Canelo at 168, it would be a farce and totally unfair.
We don’t know how Spence is going to perform in his next fight against Danny Garcia after his car crash last year on October 10th. There’s a lot of doubts about whether Spence can handle getting hit in the head without getting knocked out.
Until Spence shows what he can do against Garcia, it’s too early to talk about him moving up three weight classes to take on Canelo.
Spence still needs to prove himself as the #1 welterweight by taking on Terence Crawford in 2021. He can’t leave the 147-lb division without fighting Crawford and showing that he’s the best. Unless Spence can do that, it would be seen as a joke for him to go up to 168 to take on Canelo.
If Canelo suddenly moved up to cruiserweight and took on IBF champion Mairis Briedis, that would be the equivalent of what Spence would be doing in going up to 168.
Canelo did move up to 175 last year in November and unseated WBO champion Sergey Kovalev, but that wasn’t against the best fighter.
If Canelo had taken on IBF/WBC light-heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev or WBA champ Dimitry Bivol and beaten those guys, then you could say that was impressive. But for Canelo to beat Kovalev, who looks completely shot at 36, that wasn’t a great achievement.
Also, the fight was very, very strange looking. The way that Kovalev wasn’t throwing power punches and fighting at an incredibly slow pace.
It looked like an odd bird that you wonder about. I just know that if Canelo fought Beterbiev and Bivol, he would have a different experience and the fight wouldn’t be in slow motion like the Kovalev match. That was such a disturbing fight to watch.
Canelo, 30, is fighting next month against WBA Super World 168-lb champion Callum Smith on December 19th. It took Canelo a couple of years to finally take on Smith after he captured the secondary WBA title in 2018 in beating Rocky Fielding.