Who’s next on the menu for Canelo Alvarez?
On November 6, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (57-1-2, 39 KO’s) slid through the ring ropes and, after eleven hard-fought rounds, he defeated Caleb Plant. Admittedly, he was in tougher than expected dueling Plant. Yet he nevertheless became the first ever undisputed super middleweight champion. Even better, the redhead snagged all the trinkets in just a hair under eleven months since launching his campaign. This, however, is not enough to satisfy the eternal hunger of the boxing public. Now that he has all the belts at 168, the question now becomes: who’s next for Canelo?
DEFEND THE CROWN?
One logical place to initiate this search is right in the super middleweight division. Once there, the first painfully obvious selection would be David “Red Flag” Benavidez (24-0, 21 KO’s). To begin, he is, in the eyes of many, still the unofficial WBC168-pound champion. As he is undefeated, Benavidez was stripped of his belt after missing weight rather than losing it in battle. In fact, outside of Canelo himself, Benavidez is routinely considered to be the best boxer within the super middleweight division.
Red Flag is on record countless times explaining his desire to face Canelo in the ring. Sadly, the redhead has not shown a great deal of interest in dancing with the high-volume war machine. So from that aspect, this is probably not a bout that you want to hold your breath waiting on. At the same time however, Benavidez is ranked #1 (WBC), which positions him on a seemingly inevitable collision course with the Mexican superstar.
RELATED: David Benavidez: “If I Beat Uzcategui I Earned The Right To Fight Canelo!”
Two other extreme 168-pound wild cards would be Anthony Dirrell (34-2-2, 25 KO’s) and Edgar Berlanga (18-0, 16 KO’s). Dirrell just fought on the Canelo v Plant undercard and claimed an eye-catching one-punch knockout. The thrilling win will certainly endear him in the fans’ minds. Yet, his name value, age and current lack of any real buzz make him a long shot.
Edgar Berlanga is the total opposite. He is young, his name is ringing and he has an electrifying buzz about him. This bout would get a great deal of attention and probably do favorably in the box office. They could even spin it like Canelo was offering Berlanga the same shot Mayweather did for him. With this being said, Berlanga is very green and it would almost look like bullying for Canelo to face him now. It’d be an astonishing surprise if this one came next.
THE OLD FRONTIER
With all the belts at super middleweight, his other options in the division are thinner than third world Christmas lists. Ironically, now the majority of his best options reside down at middleweight. His longest standing option, and the one he unquestionably will not pick, is WBO middleweight champion Demetrius “Boo Boo” Andrade (30-0, 18 KO’s). The slick, hard-hitting and versatile fighter has chased a showdown with Canelo over three divisions and numerous years.
Andrade has attempted to secure the bout as the mandatory challenger, and even when he was the champion and Alvarez the mandatory. Near shamefully, Canelo has run from this fight like a police informant fleeing a compromised safe house. There’s a very legitimate argument that the underlying reason why Canelo didn’t unify at super welterweight or middleweight is his outright refusal to face Andrade. Having just watched Plant give the redhead fits with his footwork, it really does make sense why he wouldn’t want to look at or jump on Boo Boo.
TRYING FOR A TRILOGY?
Technically speaking, Canelo could easily make a fight with Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (41-1-1, 36 KO’s) to conclude their trilogy. A huge body of boxing enthusiasts will forever say that Alvarez should have lost the premiere September 16, 2017 dustup to Golovkin. Yet, being the Teflon Don of the scorecards that Canelo is, he got away with a draw. One year later however, in the rematch, the redhead walked away as the unquestionable victor.
RELATED: Canelo On Golovkin: “What Has He Done After He Fought Me? Nothing!”
Since then, GGG has done little to nothing but grow older, somewhat irrelevant and put on a shaky performance. For example, Canelo has fought more times in the last nine months than Golovkin has in the past three years. In fact, Golovkin has yet to fight in 2021. Not only that, there is a widespread belief that Golovkin should have been saddled with a loss in his 2019 bout against Sergiy Derevyanchenko. Similar to his redhead conqueror, Golovkin’s greater name value appeared to win the day for him in lieu of his skills. With this being said, GGG is not on the tips of any tongues and teasing no imaginations. At this point, the Golovkin trilogy seems farfetched.
SHOW NO WEAKNESS!
Lastly, there is WBC world middleweight champion Jermall “Hit Man” Charlo (32-0, 22 KO’s). Like Andrade, Hit Man has loudly pursued a duel with the Mexican for quite a while. Just the same as his fellow middleweight champion, he remained fruitless in this excursion. With boxing being the weird world that it is though, there is a chance that Charlo just may get the next nod. Rather than completely exile any notion of fighting Charlo, as he’s done to Andrade, the redhead has mentioned Hit Man’s name favorably plenty of times.
Beyond the boxing cash cow’s bringing him up, in his last at-bat, Charlo gave an uneven performance that earned him the side-eye from countless viewers. This is because, when in against Juan Montiel, it was believed Charlo would walk right through the little known boxer. Instead, Hit Man was pushed extremely hard in an exceedingly tough night in the office. Having shown this recent vulnerability, it’s not beyond reason that Canelo would try to pounce on him now. That’s just the modern day business of brutality.
In the end though, we will have to wait and see what Alvarez chooses to do next. Let’s just hope it’s a good one!
By: Bakari Simpson
