Canelo Alvarez has seemingly abandoned any plans to move up in weight in the near-future as he is set to face Terence Crawford next month in Las Vegas.
Canelo Alvarez has appeared to slow down in recent years, and has been unable to score a single stoppage win since 2021, when he defeated Caleb Plant.
Though he is seemingly winding down slowly, his career will see one of its biggest fights next month as the Mexican star will take on a fellow pound-for-pound elite in Terence Crawford, who will move up two divisions to face him for his undisputed super-middleweight titles.
Canelo is full of self-belief going into the fight, just as he was years ago, when he believed he could not only conquer his own division, but the light-heavyweight, cruiserweight, and heavyweight divisions, too.
Canelo wanted to face Oleksandr Usyk 1lb over the cruiserweight limit
In 2022, Eddie Hearn spoke to JOE.co.uk and said of Canelo, “When we talk about mindset and winning, he genuinely believes he can beat Oleksandr Usyk for the world heavyweight title.”
“He said to me ‘If you can make that fight at one pound above cruiserweight – which obviously Usyk was a cruiserweight – I will beat him’.”
This interview took place shortly before Canelo’s bid for the light-heavyweight world title against Dmitry Bivol, and Hearn’s next sentence would spell a self-fulfilling prophecy:
“Sometimes, the only way someone like Canelo Alvarez or Vasyl Lomachenko gets beat is when they keep moving up in weight outside of where they should be. That’s maybe how Canelo Alvarez gets beat, [when] it’s a challenge too far.”
Just as Hearn said, Canelo’s fight with Bivol proved to be a step too far, and the Russian walked away with his hand raised, after handing the face of boxing his second ever defeat.
With the loss, Canelo’s plans to move up to cruiserweight against Ilunga Makabu were ruined, as were any talks of a fight with Usyk.
Canelo scored a career-defining KO in his first jump to light-heavyweight
Though Canelo, who spars heavyweights, fell short against Bivol, it was not his first time in the 175-pound division.
In 2019, Alvarez faced 34-3-1 Sergey Kovalev, a six foot fighter whose only unavenged losses came against Andre Ward.
The 5’7.5″ Canelo took on the challenge in a bid to capture Kovalev’s WBO light-heavyweight world title, and was put to the test, as, going into the penultimate round, all three scorecards were extremely close, with Canelo ahead by one round on two, and one card unable to split the pair.
It was in that 11th round, though, that the Mexican pound-for-pound elite proved why he was the face of boxing, as he sent Kovalev, who stopped Anthony Yarde, crashing down onto the canvas, delivering him his third-ever stoppage loss.
Kovalev retired in April after a win over Artur Mann.