Santos Saul Álvarez Barragán, better known as Canelo, which translates to ‘cinnamon’ for his fiery red hair, has spiced up the boxing scene since his debut. Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1990, this pugilist has clinched world championships across four weight divisions, making him a staple in the Hall of Fame pantry. Canelo unified titles in three divisions and claimed lineal championships in two, notably overpowering Miguel Cotto in 2015 for the WBC, Ring, and lineal middleweight crowns. Outside the ring, Canelo’s life is just as sweet, sharing it with his two kids, Emily Cinnamon Alvarez and Mía Ener Álvarez, and his wife, Fernanda Gómez, since 2021. According to Forbes, Canelo is worth at least $275 million!
By Dan Ambrose: If WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) was looking for an excuse for why he shouldn’t have to face interim WBC 160lb champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) now or perhaps never, I think he finally has got the excuse.
Canelo’s recent fight last month against former WBC middleweight title holder Miguel Cotto (40-5, 33 KOs) brought an official number of 900,000 pay-per-view fights on HBO, according to Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated.
By Dan Ambrose: Ever since Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) defeated Miguel Cotto (40-5, 33 KOs) last month to win the WBC middleweight title, he’s been getting really torn apart by boxing fans on his Instagram.
The fans are very, very unhappy with Canelo talking about wanting to continue to fight at a catch-weight of 155lbs despite him holding onto the WBC middleweight title now. On almost every Instagram post by Canelo, the fans barbeque him about the catch-weight thing. They want Canelo to fight at the full weight of 160lbs against Gennady “GGG” Golovkin and in all of his other title defenses to come in the future.
By Dan Ambrose: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) has now officially been the WBC middleweight champion for 10 days, and he now has 5 more days to begin negotiations with his #1 WBC mandatory challenger Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) before the World Boxing Council is supposed to step in and strip the 25-year-old Canelo of his WBC 160lb title.
Thus far, there’s been no world from Canelo’s camp about whether or not they’re going to defend the WBC title against Golovkin. The only thing we’ve heard is Canelo’s trainer Eddy Reynoso saying that they don’t plan on moving off of the 155 pound catch-weight that they’ve been fighting at for the last two years.
By Dan Ambrose: Trainer Robert Garcia thinks it would be a mistake on WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) to face WBC interim champion Gennady “Triple G” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) right now, because he definitely sees Golovkin beating Canelo if that fight takes place right now.
However, Garcia thinks that could change if the 25-year-old Canelo waits two years until Golovkin is 35-years-old before taking that fight. Garcia believes that Canelo will improve in the next couple of years with the experience he gets in the ring.
By Dan Ambrose: Eddy Reynoso, the trainer for new WBC middleweight Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs), thinks that Miguel Cotto’s trainer Freddie Roach has warped the mind of Cotto by making him think that he won the fight against Canelo last Saturday night at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Roach and Cotto surprised a lot of boxing fans after the fight by saying that they felt that they had won the contest. Floyd Mayweather Jr. thinks that Roach didn’t do a good job working Cotto’s corner in the fight by failing to realize how dire the situation was for the 35-year-old Puerto Rican fighter and by not telling him to step up the pace in the last half of the fight.
By Dan Ambrose: WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s trainer Eddy Reynoso says that they’re not looking to create a new weight division by staking out 155 pounds for their fights nowadays, but he says that Canelo will continue to fight at 155 because that’s a weight that he’s comfortable at.
Reynoso says that it’s a weight that is good for the 25-year-old Canelo, and that if anyone wants to fight him, they’ll need to agree to fight at 155. It’s unclear whether the World Boxing Council will agree to let Canelo force his challengers to his WBC title fight at the 155lb catch-weight.
By Gerardo Granados: It has been reported that the WBC middleweight belt holder Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s trainer Eddy Reynoso stated that if the middleweight Champion of the World Gennady Golovkin wants to fight Canelo, he should agree to a diva catch weight of 155, just as the former belt holder Miguel Cotto, who argued to be small for the middle weight division and now Canelo seems to try to impose on his mandatory challenger an unjust and unnecessary catch weight.
If a boxer no longer can make the division weight limit, he will be forced to move up; be it the 160 pounds middleweight limit. He will normally move up to 168, not to 161. When a fighter campaigns at a weight division, he will cut weight to make the division limit be it 160 or 168, but he won’t go down to 155 or 161.
By Dan Ambrose: Willie Monroe Jr. was very impressed with the performance of Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) last Saturday night in his 12 round unanimous decision victory over Miguel Cotto (40-5, 33 KOs) to win the WBC middleweight title.
Monroe Jr. came away from watching the fight with the belief that the 25-year-old Canelo would definitely beat Golovkin when/if they face each other. Monroe Jr. lost to Golovkin earlier this year in getting stopped in the 6th round last May at The Forum in Inglewood, California.
By Jermill Pennington: Prior to this past weekend’s fight featuring Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Miguel Cotto there was a narrative in the boxing world that the elder Miguel Cotto had in some way revitalized himself under the tutelage of legendary trainer Freddie Roach.
After suffering back to back unanimous decision losses at the hands of Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Austin Trout, many believed that Cotto’s hall of fame career was near the end. Nonetheless like many fighters before him Cotto was not yet ready to hang up the gloves. Now at a cross road in his career losing to the little known Austin Trout, Cotto reached out to Freddie Roach in search of a transformation of sorts.
By Dan Ambrose: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) made a lot of fans happy last Saturday night when he announced that he’s ready and willing to fight WBC interim middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) to show fans that he’s not afraid to fight anybody. Well, now it looks like Canelo is setting up conditions for Golovkin to meet in order to fight him.
If Golovkin wants the fight with him, he might need to fight Canelo at 155lbs, the weight class that Canelo has created recently in his last four fights. It seems that he likes to fight at 155lbs, and he doesn’t see any reason why he should change that, even though he’s now the WBC middleweight champion.