I saw a lot of preemptive strikes on the serial Canelo haters prior to the Mexican star’s fight with Avni Yildirim this Saturday-- and rightfully so. There was no question that Saul Alvarez would beat the guy from Turkey and little doubt that he would do so brutally. But so fucking what?
The guy is aiming to face three top 5 super middleweights and an alphabet mandatory in a 10-month span: Callum Smith, Avni Yildirim, Billy Joe Saunders, and possibly Caleb Plant...with maybe one more fight in December, too.
Show me one other fighter who’s doing things like that or one other who’s done something like that in recent memory.
I’ll wait...go ahead…and while I’m waiting, I’ll Boxrec Gennadiy Golovkin and see what he’s been up to recently...or, even, not-so-recently.
And, yeah, I do have a hard-on about going after “Triple G.” I mean, man, the guy had his salad tossed for nearly a decade, got his name wedged into “all-time greats” lists, was given carte blanche to fight whoever he wanted, and facilitated the derision and dismissal of many good, earnest fighters who fell afoul of his media tidal wave of fanboy adulation. He could’ve been doing what Canelo is doing right now-- cleaning out a division of, maybe, inferior opposition but, at the very damn least, DOING SOMETHING against fighters who matter. The only real opponent Triple G has fought since his loss to Canelo in September of 2018 is Sergiy Derevyanchenko and that fight only happened because it HAD to happen for him to get the vacant IBF middleweight belt.
But I digress. The topic is Saul Alvarez and then the super middleweights in general.
Alvarez is doing this boxing stuff right. He hasn’t always done it right. I still remember him beating up pedestrian welterweight Matthew Hatton for the WBC junior middleweight title; Ryan Rhodes and Alfonso Gomez as his first two title defenses; the pasting of a bloated, chinny Amir Khan; the blasting of toothless tigers Alfredo Angulo and James Kirkland. There was Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and Rocky Fielding. There was also the whole clenbuterol fiasco that, even if you gave him the absolute benefit of every possible doubt, made him look pretty bad.
But he’s also the guy who fought Austin Trout and Erislandy Lara when he didn’t have to-- and beat them. He’s the guy who pursued a bout with the much-avoided Paul Williams before Williams’ career-ending motorcycle crash and Jame Kirkland when Kirkland very much still had teeth. He’s also the guy who jumped at the chance to fight Floyd Mayweather at 23, who beat Miguel Cotto decisively, who twice shut down Golovkin’s vaunted offense, who went up in weight to knock out light heavyweight titlist Sergey Kovalev, who made Daniel Jacobs look like he didn’t belong in the ring with him, and who beat some very good fighters over the course of his career. And he’s also the guy doing what he’s doing now, on a course to beat the super middleweight division’s no. 1 ranked fighter at the time and two other top 5 168-pounders, plus an alphabet mandatory, in a ten-month span while unifying all 4 divisional belts.
Is this run of his perfect? No. He could’ve jumped right into the two fights that, IMO, would’ve been the toughest challenges-- David Benavidez and Jermall Charlo. But let’s be realistic. Nobody, ever, in the history of this way-too-romanticized sport of ours has leaped at the greater challenge for the lesser reward. Alvarez wants to unify and he wants to continue to build on a body of work while doing so. Neither Benavidez nor Charlo has a super middleweight belt and, money-wise, neither can deliver him any more of a payday than who he’s facing right now.
But Canelo’s career choices have shown us that he’s more likely to address these unmet challenges than not. I, personally, have little doubt that he will be fighting both Benavidez and Charlo at some point and that he’ll probably take on Golovkin in a part three as well. In this age of instant gratification, it’s alright to wait on a 30-year-old to unify, first, before taking on the biggest threats of them all. And it’s not like he’s fighting bums, anyway. As I said earlier, with the exception of Yildirim, he’s fighting nothing but top 5 guys.
I pointed this out in a previous article of mine, but this Canelo model, if it plays out as he’s designed, is precisely how a division should be run. An undisputed champ at the top, knocking off the pretenders to the throne on the way up and then sitting back to meet the challenges of hungry contenders as they rise. Eventually, someone will come along to knock his crown off and replace him on the throne-- and that win will be of even greater importance than normal, the new undisputed champ will be a bigger star for having toppled en established presence like Canelo.
That’s how boxing works when it’s working.
That’s how boxing works when a star is doing his business responsibly.
The Yildirim slaughter is fine, as long as it’s one moment buried inside a growing legacy. If/when Canelo deviates from this honest, earnest plan to build a proper legacy, I promise I’ll verbally slap the freckles off his face with just as much enthusiasm as I praise him now.
Got something for Magno? Send it here: paulmagno@theboxingtribune.com