By Sean Jones: Canelo Alvarez says he doesn’t view his 2013 defeat at the hands of Floyd Mayweather Jr as a defeat because he learned a lot from the fight. Canelo believes he improved a lot since that fight in the last eight years, capturing titles at 154, 160, 168 & 175.
Canelo mentions that he was only 23-years-old when he fought the 36-year-old Mayweather. While Canelo doesn’t come right out and blame his loss on his age, it’s pretty clear that’s his likely rationale for mentioning it.
https://youtu.be/99zoFgtsA60
Unfortunately, Canelo’s age isn’t an adequate excuse for his loss due to Mayweather being so old at 36. Additionally, boxing great Salvador Sanchez was 23-years-old at the time of his sudden death from a car crash in 1982. Sanchez was beating the best from 20 to 23, and you didn’t hear him talking about his youth.
“When I fought Floyd, I was 23. [I have since matured] so much. I needed more experience, maturity,” said Canelo to HotboxinPodcast.
“I don’t take that fight like a loss; I take that fight like [a lesson]. I learned from that fight.”
To know for certain that Canelo has improved, we’d have to have seen him beat the best without oddball scoring being done. We haven’t see Canelo fight a lot of guys when they were in their prime, unfortunately, in the last eight years.
Alvarez didn’t fight Gennady Golovkin until he was 36, Miguel Cotto until he was 35, Erislandy Lara until he was 34, and Sergey Kovalev until he was 36. It’s hard not to see a pattern here.
We haven’t see Canelo fight these fighters in the last eight years:
- Artur Beterbiev
- David Benavidez
- Jermall Charlo
- Dimitry Bivol
- Demetrius Andrade
- Caleb Plant
After Canelo’s controversial win over GGG in 2018, he should have fought him in an immediate rematch in a neutral venue. Instead, we saw Canelo go in the opposite direction, fighting Rocky Fielding, and he hasn’t fought Golovkin since.
Canelo has matured obviously since the loss to Mayweather, but I don’t think you can say he’s gotten better. He’s grown in size and many questionable wins in the eight years since that defeat.
Even against Mayweather, we saw controversy, with one judge shockingly scoring the fight a draw. Back then, we already saw questionable scoring for one of Canelo’s fights that have since become commonplace.
Besides appearing to copy Mayweather’s fighting style, Canelo doesn’t look to have visibly improved since the defeat.
If Canelo were improved, he wouldn’t have controversial wins over these fighters:
- Erislandy Lara – 2014
- Miguel Cotto – 2015
- Gennady Golovkin 1 – 2017
- Gennady Golovkin 2 – 2018
Canelo arguably deserved losses in those four fights, which all came after the Mayweather schooling in 2013. Canelo should have five additional losses to go with his defeat against Mayweather.
Alvarez’s win over Austin Trout in April 2013 was controversial as well. So if you factor those fights in, you can’t say that Canelo has improved.
What you can say is Canelo has gotten better at picking out his opposition, and that’s gotten some very questionable scoring on the same level as we saw in the recent Roman ‘Chocolatito’ Gonzalez vs. Juan Francisco Estrada 2 rematch last Saturday night.