By Jeff Aronow: Canelo Alvarez is endearing himself to the British fans this week as he prepares to destroy Billy Joe Saunders this Saturday night in front of 70,000 screaming fans at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Canelo (55-1-2, 37 KOs) says his dream is to fight in England in front of the British fans over there.
What Alvarez isn’t saying is WHO he will choose to fight because once he soundly beats Saunders (30-0, 14 KOs) this Saturday, he’ll have cleaned out the top Brits at 168. There will literally be no one left for Alvarez to fight at 168.
Canelo will have beaten these British fighters: Callum Smith, Rocky Fielding, and Billy Joe.
“I will love to fight in England. For me, it’s a dream going to England and fighting in front of a lot of people from England,” said Canelo to PAsport. “I have a lot of fans from there, and I will love to be there.”
If Canelo loses to Saunders, fighting in England is a no-brainer, but it seems unlikely that it’s almost absurd even to contemplate a wacky scenario such as that.
Here are Canelo’s options for fighting in England:
- Joshua Buatsi
- Callum Johnson
- John Ryder
- Zach Parker
- Liam Williams
- Jason Quigley
- Craig Richards
- Anthony Yarde
- Lyndon Arthur
It’s too early for Buatsi to be fed to Canelo
The only one that’s worth fighting right now for Canelo is the unbeaten light heavyweight Joshua Buatsi (13-0, 11 KOs), but he’s still too green to be taking on the Mexican star.
Promoter Eddie Hearn is trying to build the 2016 Olympian Buatsi, 28, up, and he’s not going to want to throw him to the wolves before he’s had a chance to win a world title.
Given the lack of interest from U.S boxing fans in Canelo’s fight this Saturday against Saunders, it would be wise on Alvarez’s part to wait a long while before he faces another unpopular fighter.
It’s important that when Canelo does fight in England, he doesn’t choose another gimme type of fight as we saw in his mismatches against Ricky Fielding, Callum Smith, and Liam Smith.
Canelo needs to wait a few years until one of the top British fighters establishes themselves before going over to England to fight one of them because he’s not helping himself with the U.S fans.
There have been too many lackluster opponents for Canelo in the last three years since his questionable 12 round decision over Gennadiy Golovkin in 2018.
It’s beginning to look obvious that Canelo is intentionally beatable opposition that good fighters, but the ones that U.S fans want to see him fighting.
If Canelo fights another Brit, he should wait until one of them becomes a top challenger before fighting them.
Canelo needs to start making fights fans want to see
This Saturday’s fight for the 30-year-old WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Canelo will be his sixth consecutive easy fight against an opponent that American fans have no interest in seeing him fight.
Alvarez’s mismatches since 2018:
- Rocky Fielding
- Daniel Jacobs
- Sergey Kovalev
- Avni Yildirim
- Callum Smith
We’ll soon likely be adding Saunders’ name to that list of easy fights for Canelo, who looks like he’s cherry-picking weak opposition.
The fighters fans want to see Canelo fight:
- David Benavidez
- Jermall Charlo
- Demetrius Andrade
- Dimitry Bivol
- Artur Beterbiev
- Gennadiy Golovkin
- Joe Smith Jr