Golden Boy Promotions President Oscar De La Hoya has tasked WBC jr. middleweight champion Saul "Canelo" Alvarez with an assignment that not even he could complete. "Your challenge is to knock out Mosley," De La Hoya would declare during a trip to Mexico on Wednesday, where he was on hand at the Otomi Ceremonial Center to visit four-division world champion Erik Morales. De La Hoya will also be attending a press conference later today to promote the Cinco de Mayo showdown between Saul Alvarez and Shane Mosley, which takes place on the May 5th undercard of Mayweather vs. Cotto. According to De La Hoya, Mosley is the perfect opponent for Alvarez, who's been a champion of a year now, to prove that he's improved and is ready for the elite.
"Canelo must show that he is growing and his challenge is to knock out Mosley, who knows that he is in his last title shot," De La explained to record.com.mx. Of course, De La Hoya likely has his own personal reasons why he wouldn't mind seeing Canelo score a knockout. After all, Mosley holds two razor-thin victories over the Golden Boy, the second of which being a controversial unanimous decision that De La Hoya strongly believed he won and even threatened to launch a full investigation into the scoring...and that was before Mosley later admitted to taking BALCO steroids - "the cream" and "the clear" - as well as EPO two months prior to the bout. Not to mention, when Mosley, a former partner at Golden Boy Promotions, parted ways with the company in order to pursue a clash with Top Rank fighter Manny Pacquiao, both he and De La Hoya had some harsh words for each other during the split. Needless to say, a Canelo KO would surely bring a smile to De La Hoya's face for more reasons than one.
The question is, can Saul "Canelo" Alvarez do something that no man, including Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao, and Oscar De La Hoya himself, has been able to do after 55 professional fights? The closest anyone has come was over 10 years ago, when the late Vernon Forrest nailed the then undefeated Mosley with a devastating uppercut and crushing right hand that sent Mosley crashing to the canvas. Within seconds, however, Mosley was back on his feet just looking to survive, and survive he did. Although he would take more punishment in that fight, Mosley would ultimately go the full 12 rounds. It was Mosley first loss of his career. He would fight 15 more times after that, facing the likes of Forrest and De La Hoya again, Winky Wright, Fernando Vargas, Miguel Cotto, Ricardo Mayorga, Antonio Margarito, and Floyd Mayweather, and although he had mixed results (8-5-1, 1 NC) in those fights, not once was ever on the canvas or even close to be knocked out. In fact, it wasn't until his last fight against Manny Pacquiao when he suffered the second knockdown of his career; 9 years and 16 fights after he suffered his first career knockdown. It was a short punch, a punch he never saw, from one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the sport that sent him to the canvas, but just as he did in 2002, he got back up and survived.
On May 5th, will Saul "Canelo" Alvarez have what it takes to do something that many others have been unable to do and send Mosley to the canvas and keep him there for good, or is De La Hoya sending him out on a mission impossible?
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