Canelo Alvarez declares he’ll “retire” if John Ryder defeats him tonight

By Boxing News - 05/06/2023 - Comments

By Brian Witter: Canelo Alvarez revealed on Friday he’d retire if he loses in his title defense in his four 168-lb straps in tonight’s contest against his hungry lookalike John Ryder at the Estadio Akron stadium in Guadalupe, Mexico.

Canelo fails to give a reason for retiring if his mirrored image beats him. Still, he understands now that it’s over if he can’t defeat a fighter he selected for a confidence booster after a horrible year in 2022.

There’s a genuine possibility that Ryder beats Canelo tonight by piling on massive pressure with his up-tempo fighting style. It requires fighters with excellent cardio to deal with Ryder’s all-action game, and unfortunately for Canelo, he’s utterly deficient in that area.

Alvarez may not realize it, but his retirement threat now puts pressure on the judges to make sure he’s given the benefit of the doubt in scoring close rounds, if there are any.

Given Canelo’s speed, power & talent advantage over Ryder, there’s a good chance this fight will be just as much of a mismatch as his wins over the other British fighters that he’s soundly beaten in the past.

YouTube video

Canelo easily beat these Brits:

Ryan Rhodes
Matthew Hatton
Rocky Fielding
Billy Joe Saunders
Callum Smith
Liam Smith

“If John Ryder beats me, I’m done, but it’s NOT my last fight. I’m going to continue in boxing for a long time,” said Canelo to DAZN Boxing.

“No, I just think for the best fighter out there. I don’t want to be too confident because they said the same thing about Dmitry Bivol, and look [what happened]. So, I train 100% for the good fighter out there Like I said, if I lose to John Ryder, then I’m done.”

Canelo shouldn’t kid himself. He CAN lose this fight tonight to Ryder. It could be so one-sided that the judges don’t save him with their erratic scoring, as we saw many times in the past, most notably in his first two fights with Gennadiy Golovkin and in his contest with Erislandy Lara.

It will be a significant loss to boxing if Canelo loses tonight and carries out his threat to retire. However, at least fans have Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis to step into Canelo’s heels and become the new guy for the sport to carry the torch as the top guy, as long as he stays out of trouble.