Saul Canelo Alvarez is currently the biggest draw in boxing, and on November 2nd became a four-division world champion. After over 14 years as a professional boxer, Alvarez has fought from the light welterweight division (140 lbs), all the way to the light heavyweight (175 lbs) during his career. His professional record of 53-1-2 is highly respectable, but as learned by fighters such as Floyd Mayweather, it’s not all about if you win that makes you the greatest, but also how you win. Here are 7 Times Canelo Alvarez shocked the Boxing World.
Canelo VS Matthew Hatton: March 5, 2011
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In his first-ever fight challenging for a primary belt in any weight division, Alvarez was going up against Ricky Hatton’s younger brother Matthew for the WBC 154-pound title. Hatton was 41-4-2 and was the much more experienced fighter at 29 years old compared to Alvarez being just 21. Alvarez dictated the entire pace of the fight from the beginning and put Hatton on the canvas twice during the span of the bout and landed on 47% of his 626 punches and 53% of his power shots compared to Hatton landing just 25% of his 546 blows. The fight would submit Canelo as one of the top title contenders in the world of boxing.
Canelo VS Austin Trout: April 20, 2013
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After 5 successful defenses of his WBC 154-pound belt, Alvarez would face off against undefeated (23-0-1) southpaw Austin Trout in San Antonio, Texas. Alvarez was able to defeat Trout with unusual head movement that took away the jab of the slightly taller and longer Trout, which resulted in the American only landing 20% of his punches during the fight. And after winning by unanimous decision, and also winning the WBA and Ring Magazine light middleweight titles, a bout between Canelo and the biggest name in boxing, Floyd Mayweather Jr. was set for September 14th.
Canelo VS Miguel Cotto: November 21, 2015
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After a majority decision loss against Mayweather in Las Vegas, Alvarez would win three bouts convincingly against Alfredo Angulo, Erislandy Lara and James Kirkland before bumping up in weight to fight (40-4) Puerto Rican Miguel Cotto for the WBC, Ring Magazine and lineal 155-pound title. Canelo won the contest by unanimous decision for his brute strength that inflicted much more damage on Cotto, and his movement that resulted in Cotto only landing 21% of his punches.
Canelo VS Liam Smith: September 17, 2016
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Alvarez knocked out Amir Khan earlier during the year and was now back to light-middleweight to fight undefeated (23-0-1) British WBO light-middleweight champion Liam Smith. In front of a record-breaking crowd of 51,240 at the home of the Dallas Cowboys in Arlington, Texas, Alvarez knocked out Smith with a cracking left hook to the body in round 9 after already being knocked down in rounds 7 and 8. Canelo had vacated his WBC catchweight title after defeated Miguel Cotto to do everything in his power to make sure that a battle for supremacy would occur against the middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, a fight that would live on for ages.
Canelo VS GGG II: September 15, 2018
Golden Boy Promotions
Almost exactly one year prior, and cancellation of the initial rematch due to Canelo’s failed drug test, Alvarez faced off against undefeated (38-0-1) Kazakhstani Gennady Golovkin for the WBA, IBF and Ring Magazine middleweight titles. Many boxing analysts believed that Alvarez lost the first duel that was ruled as a Split Draw. GGG was at one point ranked the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world and his significant height advantage, more experience in the sport and 33 KO’s in his career, seemed to be too much for Canelo to be able to overcome a second time. Alvarez once again shocked everyone by winning the fight by majority decision. Alvarez went to the body as much as he could, landing 46 shots to the core compared to Golovkin’s 6, and landed 33% of his punches to Golovkin’s 27. Alvarez had done it, become the undisputed best middleweight fighter in the world.
Canelo VS Rocky Fielding: December 15, 2018
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Three months after defeating Golovkin, Alvarez gave himself a new challenge and bumped in in weight yet again to fight 27-1 British WBA 168-pound Champion Rocky Fielding. To deal with Fielding’s remarkable 6-inch height advantage and 4-inch reach advantage, Alvarez hit Fielding with a plethora of body shots. After knocking Fielding down four times during the fight, the referee was forced to put an end to the contest. Alvarez had put on 8 pounds and didn’t seem to have broken a sweat, surely moving up another 7 will be just as easy for him.
Canelo VS Kovalev: November 2, 2019
DAZN
In May of 2019, Alvarez dropped down in weight to maintain his middleweight titles against 35-2 British IBF world champion Daniel Jacobs. After defeating the American by unanimous decision, Alvarez was onto his next challenge, the light heavyweight division against 34-3-1 WBO 175-pound world champion Russian Sergey Kovalev. Kovalev was 3 inches taller than Alvarez, and the experience factor also seemed to be Canelo’s most significant weakness making pundits unsure about how the sudden bulking up would affect Alvarez’s speed, agility and head movement. Canelo silenced all the doubters by knocking out the Russian in the 11th round after a devastating left hook and straight right. Alvarez had become a four-division world champion and has simply left the critics asking, is there anything that this man can’t do?