By Sean Jones: Errol Spence Jr. believes Canelo Alvarez is capable of becoming the undisputed champion at 175, beginning with his May 7th fight against WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol.
There are many boxing fans that don’t believe Canelo (57-1-2, 39 KOs) is capable of defeating the dangerous champions at 175 in Artur Beterbiev and Joe Smith Jr.
It’s one thing for Canelo to beat a non-puncher like Bivol, but it’s a whole different kettle of fish for him to defeat genuine knockout artists like Beterbiev & Bivol, who will be trying to take his head off.
Canelo won’t be able to count on Beterbiev & Smith Jr. giving him an easy spar like Sergey Kovalev did in their fight in 2019. They won’t take it easy on Canelo out of gratitude for getting the fight. Beterbiev and Smith Jr. will be trying to win, and it won’t be pretty.
Those guys are much bigger punchers than Bivol (19-0, 11 KOs), who doesn’t have much power and is more technician rather than a slugger.
What Canelo has going for him is that Beterbiev (17-0, 17 KOs), the #1 fighter at light heavyweight is 37-years-old, and he might age enough in the next year for the Mexican star to beat him.
It’s thought that Canelo won’t go anywhere near Beterbiev until 2024, as that would put him at 39-years-old and old enough to where he’ll be vulnerable.
Spence says Canelo can become undisputed
“Canelo does whatever he wants to do. He can, and I think he can. He has the skill set. It seems like he got the chin; I think he can do it,” said Errol Spence to the DAZN Boxing Show when asked if Canelo Alvarez could capture all four titles at 175 to become the undisputed champion.
Yeah, it’s obvious that “Canelo does whatever he wants to do,” as we’ve been saying that for years. Boxing fans and the media made a big deal about Canelo becoming the undisputed champion at 168 in 2021, but what they fail to realize is the belt holders were a weak bunch.
Also, the fact that Canelo was able to line up fights against all of the champions to put himself in a position to become the undisputed champion as a result of his popularity & the money the fighters could make fighting him.
For example, if David Benavidez attempted to get fights against the 168-lb champions Billy Joe Saunders, Caleb Plant, Callum Smith, and Rocky Fielding, would he have been given the opportunity? No, of course, not because those former champions wouldn’t have wanted to lose their belts to Benavidez, and the money they would have made wouldn’t have been life-changing.
It’s only evident that Benavidez would have run the table against that weak bunch of paper champions, but he would have never been given a chance to fight them because the money wouldn’t have been huge for them.
Canelo’s popularity is what gained him access to those former champions. In other other words, it opened the door for Canelo. When you’re popular like Canelo, he can “do whatever he wants,” as Errol Spence says. That doesn’t mean Canelo is better than fighters like Benavidez, Morrell, Andrade, Golovkin, or Beterbiev. It just means he can get matches that they can’t against the flawed champions due to his popularity.
“I feel like Canelo is doing whatever he wants to do,” Spence continued about the Mexican star chasing world titles in different divisions. “He’s chasing history. What he’s doing is unheard of, skipping weight classes—fighting who he wants to fight.
Spence insists Canelo NOT ducking fighters
“I don’t feel like he’s ducking anybody,” said Spence.
It sounds like Spence isn’t too familiar with Canelo’s background for him to be saying he’s not ducking anybody because it’s fairly obvious that the ‘face of boxing’ has been swerving David Benavidez, Demetrius Andrade, David Morrell Jr, Artur Beterbiev, Jermall Charlo and even a trilogy match with Gennady Golovkin.
What we don’t know is the intention behind Spence’s comment about his belief that Canelo hasn’t been ducking anybody.
Is Spence saying this because he actually believes Canelo hasn’t been bypassing risky fights against Benavidez, Andrade, Charlo, GGG, and Beterbiev, or is this a move to curry favor with the star in hopes of getting the fight against him in the future?
Obviously, the last thing Spence needs or wants would be to get on Canelo’s bad side because he could be permanently shut out by him with no chance of getting a ‘payday’ of potentially $10-15 million.
When you can make that kind of money fighting Canelo, it makes sense for Spence – or any fighter – to pour on the compliments in hopes of one day hitting the lottery by being selected by him.
Sean Jones is just surprised that Spence didn’t say more nice things about Canelo to improve his chances of one day getting the fight.