Canelo Alvarez Wants Nothing to do With Errol Spence
In his next tour of duty, undisputed super middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (57-1-2, 39 KO’s) will face the challenge of Super WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol. To do so, the Mexican phenom will make the jump up to Bivol’s 175-pound stomping grounds. Prior to this fight being made official, there were a number of potential foes that Alvarez could have fought. Those options ranged from David Benavidez, WBC middleweight champion Jermall Charlo or the extremely unpalatable WBC cruiserweight champion, Ilunga Makabu.
Obviously, Team Alvarez opted to go with Bivol for their next mission. Yet, there was another more unorthodox notion of signing on the dotted line to face unified welterweight champion Errol “The Truth” Spence Jr (28-0, 22 KO’s). Not only did Spence state publicly that he’d love to dance with Canelo, it’s been reported that a substantial offer of over $50 million dollars was presented to Alvarez for the match. Although, the contract did contain a catchweight. When questioned about the offer, Canelo stated he turned the match down based on that 164-pound catchweight.
“Like I said before, I don’t want to do things like that. A catchweight at 164, why me? I don’t need to do that. 168? I don’t need to do anything like that!”
DERELICT OF DUTY?
Many will find it very curious that the redhead turned down such a large sum of money to face the much smaller man. Due to the old adage, “a good big man beats a good small man,” most would think that Canelo would jump at this chance. Clearly this was not the case. It’s also a bit curious that Canelo displayed a certain level of disdain at the notion of catchweight. Its’ eye-brow raising considering he utilized catchweights so much that the media began referencing his fights being at “Canelo-weight” (155 pounds) because he nearly refused to compete at the regular 154-pound standard during his tenure there.
More troubling though is Canelo’s willful avoidance of great match-ups with rather limp-wristed explanations. For example, Alvarez has remained leerier of WBO middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade than Smurf’s are of Gargamel and his cat. Over the past several years, the redhead has continuously sidestepped this match; as a champion, as the #1 challenger, and across two, going on three, divisions. To this date, the only excuse that he can muster up with the former Olympic gold medalists and multi-division champion is ‘boring.’
BAD PATTERNS
Canelo has also garnered a fair amount of flack for not signing on to face the aforementioned WBC middleweight champion Jermall Charlo. He also had to hear about choosing to step outside of the super middleweight division, following his dustup for undisputed, to stage a bout before facing two-time WBC 168-pound champion David Benavidez.
Consequently, there is a large perception among Canelo critics that he avoids mobile boxers with sound jabs like the plague. Spence would definitely fit into that mold! It’s too bad if Alvarez was simply dodging these great match-ups just because of the difficulty level. Yet. After his fight on May 7, maybe he will surprise us and supply one of these highly requested bouts after all.
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
By: Bakari Simpson
