By Sean Jones: Canelo Alvarez is still in the denial stages over his one-sided loss to the ultra-talented Dmitry Bivol a year ago in easily the worst defeat of the Mexican star’s career.
Until today, it wasn’t entirely clear how far out of touch with reality Canelo is about his loss to Bivol (21-0,11 KOs). He now insists that he’s the “better” fighter than Bivol and that he shouldn’t have lost that fight.
It’s an interesting view by Canelo because he’s passed up the chance to avenge the loss to Bivol three times and is still showing no motivation to face his conqueror after his fight this Saturday night on September 30th against 154-pounder Jermell Charlo in Las Vegas.
The boxing public believes that Canelo is flat-out scared of Bivol, afraid of getting the stuffing beaten out of him a second time, and humiliated even worse.
“I wasn’t 100% physically. My hand wasn’t 100%, and I couldn’t train 100%. A week before the fight, I suffered a rib injury during training,” said Canelo Alvarez to Hugo Sanchez Presenta, discussing what went wrong in his loss to Dmitry Bivol last year.
It seems like Canelo is still trying to make sense of what happened to him in his loss to Bivol. So, instead of his mind accepting the bitter truth about him not being good enough, it’s protecting him by blaming the defeat on injuries.
Yeah, it’s kind of pathetic, but it’s a classic defense mechanism that fighters have to shield themselves from the truth. If Canelo fully accepted the reality of what happened to him on that night, it could ruin his self-confidence.
Canelo insists that the reason he lost to Bivol is because he fought with a hand & rib injury and that he shouldn’t have gone through with the fight in the physical state that he was in.
“I shouldn’t have fought. That defeat is still a pain in my heart; I still haven’t gotten over that moment,” said Canelo. “It affected me deeply because I shouldn’t have lost; I am simply better than him.”
Canelo looked like he was 100% against Bivol, but the problem was too one-dimensional on offense, and his stamina was worse than poor.
Alvarez’s loyal, adoring boxing fans have bought into the injury excuses that he’s used to explain away his defeat to Bivol, but their belief will disappear if he were to fight him a second time and get schooled once again. Hence, Canelo is fighting Jermell, and after him, he’s expected to face his inactive twin brother, middleweight Jermall Charlo, who hasn’t fought in 2 1/2 years.