Liam Smith

Canelo-Smith will NOT undergo VADA testing

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Image: Canelo-Smith will NOT undergo VADA testing

By Dan Ambrose: In something of an odd move, World Boxing Organization junior middleweight champion Liam Smith (23-0-1, 13 KOs) and the Golden Boy Promotions flagship fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (47-1-1, 33 KOs) will NOT be taking part in the drug testing from Voluntary Anti-Doping Association (VADA) for their upcoming fight next month on September 17 on HBO pay-per-view at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

It’s too bad there won’t be drug testing for the Canelo-Smith fight, because I think it helps when boxing fans know that the testing is being done. Neither of these fighters have ever been under suspicion for using performance enhancing drugs in the past, but it would still be nice if the testing had been done.

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Liam Smith: Canelo went to 154 to save face over Triple G

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Image: Liam Smith: Canelo went to 154 to save face over Triple G

By Dan Ambrose: Liam Smith says the reason why Saul “Canelo” Alvarez came down to 154 to fight him for his WBO junior middleweight title was for him to save face over ducking the fight against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. Canelo was supposed to defend his World Boxing Council middleweight title against Golovkin due to him being Canelo’s mandatory challenger.

The WBC had already ordered the negotiations to take place between Canelo and Golovkin, and they even had a deadline in place for the negotiations to be finished. But instead of Canelo defending his WBC title against Triple G, he gave up his belt by vacating it, and he then moved down to 154 to challenge Liam Smith for his WBO junior middleweight title. Smith thinks that was a calculated move on Canelo’s part to keep him from catching heat from the boxing public.

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Liam Smith: Canelo will be embarrassed after I beat him

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Image: Liam Smith: Canelo will be embarrassed after I beat him

By Dan Ambrose: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (47-1-1, 33 KOs) is the favorite to defeat unbeaten WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith (23-0-1, 13 KOs) on September 17 on HBO PPV, but Smith believes he’s going to defeat Canelo and embarrass him with his victory. Smith is amused that Canelo has been talking this week about wanting to fight Manny Pacquiao, because he feels he’s going to give him a big fat loss next month in their fight at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Smith says that after he defeats Canelo, they’re going to look to have a rematch with him straightaway. Smith expects the money he’ll be offered will be a lot, and that they’ll be thinking up excuses to try and explain why they lost.

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Canelo did NOT duck Golovkin fight!

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Image: Canelo did NOT duck Golovkin fight!

By Scott Gilfoid: WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith is saying today that Saul “Canelo” Alvarez purposefully ducked the Gennady “GGG” Golovkin fight by choosing to go in another direction. Smith says that Canelo built up the hopes of the boxing fans for the GGG fight by talking tough with him inside the ring after his fight against Amir Khan last May, but then he chose to give up his WBC belt rather than fight him.

I personally don’t see Canelo doing anything wrong by not taking the Golovkin fight. I think Canelo should wait five years before he fights Golovkin. If he’s still around by that point, then so be it. He gets the fight. If not, then that’s his problem. I mean, it’s not as if the casual boxing fans were demanding the fight. It was a fight too soon to be made.

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Liam Smith says Canelo ducked Golovkin

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Image: Liam Smith says Canelo ducked Golovkin

By Bradley D. Cision:: It looks like even Saul Canelo” Alvarez’s opponent WBO junior middleweight champion Liam “Beefy” Smith is criticizing Canelo Alvarez for ducking the universally recognized middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin. In a recent interview with Fight News, Liam Smith was quoted as saying that Canelo ducked GGG massively and went about everything the wrong way when approaching a potential fight with Golovkin, and calling him out.

“Yeah, ducked him [Golovkin] massively. He went the wrong way about it. He’s being criticized a lot and losing a lot of fans about the way he did it,” said Liam Smith to Fightnews.com about Canelo ducking the Golovkin fight.

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Canelo: Golovkin fight will happen when timing is right

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Image: Canelo: Golovkin fight will happen when timing is right

By Allan Fox: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez isn’t ready yet to fight IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, and he’s not saying when he will be ready to take the fight. Canelo says that when the fight does happen in the future, it’ll be Golovkin who will need to try and get ready for him and not the other way around. This means that Canelo expects to be the better fighter of the two when they do step inside the ring. Of course, if Canelo waits out the 34-year-old Golovkin until he’s older and lost his skills, then what he says about the better fighter would definitely apply.

Canelo has a fight next month against WBO light middleweight champion Liam Smith on September 17. After that fight, Canelo says he’ll fight in December, May and then September. His promoters at Golden Boy Promotions have pegged September 2017 for when the Canelo-Golovkin fight will take place. However, Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya has stopped speaking of next year for when the Canelo-Golovkin fight will be taking place.

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De La Hoya: Canelo has replaced Mayweather

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Image: De La Hoya: Canelo has replaced Mayweather

By Dan Ambrose: Floyd Mayweather Jr. is gone from boxing with him retiring last year, and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez is seen by his promoter Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions as the replacement as the next star. The boxing world has been slow in agreeing that Canelo is Mayweather’s replacement, perhaps due to Canelo’s reluctance to step up to the plate and take on Gennady “GGG” Golovkin.

Taking that fight and proving that he can beat the Kazakhstan star would seem to be the barrier that Canelo must pass through for him to be the replacement for Mayweather. It’s not enough for Canelo’s promoter De La Hoya to tell the boxing world that he’s the guy that has taken the torch from Mayweather.

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De La Hoya says Canelo-Smith will bring in BIG PPV numbers

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Image: De La Hoya says Canelo-Smith will bring in BIG PPV numbers

By Patrick McHugh: It’s impossible to know how many pay-per-view buys that Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Liam Smith fight will bring in on HBO for their fight on September 17, but Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya believes it’s going to be a ton. De La Hoya is gauging the ultimate pay-per-view buys for the Canelo-Smith fight based on the ticket sales for their fight at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

De La Hoya says the ticket sales thus far are outpacing the ticket sales for the Manny Pacquiao vs. Antonio Margarito fight that took place at the same Texas Stadium six year years ago in November 2010.

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De La Hoya: Canelo will fight Golovkin when his body is ready for 160

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By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya said today that his fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez is still a 154lb fighter, and that he’s not going to fight unbeaten Gennady “GGG” Golovkin until his body tells him it’s ready to go up to 160lbs to take that fight. This is the same thing De La Hoya has been saying for months now.

The way that De La Hoya was speaking, it doesn’t seem like Canelo will be fighting Golovkin in 2017. There was previously talk that Golden Boy wanted to wait until the fall of 2017 before they matched Canelo against Golovkin, but now it appears that it’s going to depend on when Canelo’s body is ready for him to fight at 160. Just how long that’ll take is unclear.

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Canelo says he’ll be moving up to 160 after Smith fight

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Image: Canelo says he’ll be moving up to 160 after Smith fight

By Dan Ambrose: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (47-1-1, 33 KOs) says he thinks he’ll be moving up to the 160lb division after he faces WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith (23-0-1, 13 KOs) on September 17. Canelo has already been unofficially fighting as a middleweight for the last two years of his career with his catch-weight fights at 155lbs, but it looks like he wants to make it official after he fights Smith next month.

The move up in weight for Canelo is long overdue because as heavy as he is, he should have been fighting at the full weight of 160 pounds in the middleweight division a long time ago. Canelo says he still makes the 154lb weight class easily, but he feels he’ll be more comfortable at middleweight.

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