Ranking the Best Opponents for Canelo Alvarez's Next Fight
Being Canelo Alvarez means never having to say you're sorry.
Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s co-star in one of history's most lucrative fights three years ago subsequently jumped to middleweight, won a lineal title and gave it up rather than agree to a match with the 160-pound opponent with whom most fans wanted to see him rumble.
But rather than experiencing life on the outside of acclaim, all Alvarez did Saturday night was draw 50,000-plus supporters to AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas—home of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys—to see him dismantle a foe who had never sniffed either the United States or a top-10 competitor.
Englishman Liam Smith played the role of competitive pinata for the Mexican independence weekend celebration, ably taking shots to the head and body before finally breaking apart and enabling the pro-Alvarez revelry at 2:28 of Round 9.
The win boosted Alvarez, now 26, to 48-1-1 across 50 fights in a pro career that began in 2005.
“I started controlling him, but in the second round I hurt my (right) hand and I had to use my left more often,” he told HBO's Max Kellerman. “He was very strong in the beginning and I had to put the body work in. I felt he would dwindle.”
Still, as impressive and dominant as the win over the world's 17th-best 154-pounder might have been, it did little more than stoke the curiosity fire for what might come next for the cinnamon-haired phenom.
Toward that end, we’ve put together a list of suggestions here—complete with boxing’s ever-present mix of competitive fantasy and promotional reality—and invite your input in the comment section.
5. Willie Monroe Jr.
1 of 5
Let's be realistic: No one not named Willie Monroe Jr. will be asking for this one.
Nevertheless, the pre-fight run-up indicated that the winner of Saturday's final prelim between Monroe and Gabriel Rosado could be next in line for Alvarez in December.
Monroe ended up the winner by unanimous decision in the 12-rounder for the dubious WBO intercontinental middleweight title, and while a subsequent match with him would provide Alvarez with a chance to re-establish his 160-pound street cred, it doesn't titillate the senses.
It may, however, provide something worthwhile for Alvarez.
Though not a world-beater by anyone's regard, Monroe is a legitimate 160-pounder and has been in with Gennady Golovkin. He's a slick guy but not remarkably fast or powerful, so he may have a style against which Alvarez can not only win but win impressively.
And though it won't necessarily prepare Alvarez for Golovkin's swarming, crunching style, it will allow him to enter such a bout with the confidence that he's toppled a 160-pounder. And if he can do it with the same alacrity with which Golovkin did so last year, even better for the promotional side of things.
4. Erislandy Lara
2 of 5
Compiling lists like this always means mixing fighters whom the fans think a certain guy should fight and fighters he’s actually likely to fight given promotional tie-ups, network allegiances and style aversions.
Count Erislandy Lara in among that last bunch.
Though no one labeled their July 2014 bout as a classic, more than a few people believe the Cuban export now residing in Houston was the second man to beat Alvarez over 12 rounds.
The judges saw it differently, though, with Levi Martinez (117-111 Canelo) and Dave Moretti (115-113 Canelo) overruling Jerry Roth’s 115-113 card for Lara and prompting post-fight calls for investigation from members of the frustrated loser’s camp.
Thus, there's little reason to believe Lara will get a rematch, though he probably deserves one.
Regardless, he's since rebuilt his career and won a title at 154 pounds, and he continues to harbor a desire for a second go-round with his only active conqueror. In fact, he told BoxingScene.com he’d be happy to fight Alvarez and middleweight KO machine Gennady Golovkin in succession.
“I’m willing to fight Canelo next, and winner signs off on fighting GGG after that,” he said. “There’s always unfinished business when there’s debatable fights, and me and Canelo have a score to settle.”
3. Manny Pacquiao
3 of 5
Now, we have a fight that was talked about, snuffed out by a would-be retirement and now revived thanks to the retiree's return to the game.
As yet another prospective opponent, we give you Manny Pacquiao.
The Filipino said his emotional farewells after what amounted to a third straight wide decision over Tim Bradley in April in Las Vegas (even if Pacquiao officially lost the first one). But even as he was accepting congratulations for a career’s worth of jobs well done, he conceded that his heart was just 50-50 about actually leaving for good.
His own trainer, in fact, said that night he hoped his man would continue.
Add a few dozen million dollars to the mix and it turns out that adieus are even tougher to come by.
Pacquiao is set to return to the ring in November for a match with welterweight claimant Jessie Vargas, and a presumed win would present the multi-division kingpin with myriad choices.
He could dip down and face rising Top Rank commodity Terence Crawford or step up and tackle Alvarez.
Per Matthew Aguilar of the El Paso Times, Top Rank czar Bob Arum said the concept has been discussed and that Alvarez could indeed be the target of choice.
"Canelo is a guy that (trainer) Freddie Roach and he are talking about wanting to fight," Arum said.
.jpg?w=256 "Colts Jaguars Football")
2. David Lemieux
4 of 5
Meanwhile, some fights seem likely to occur even though no one is asking for them.
Enter David Lemieux.
It’s not that the 27-year-old Canadian isn’t a good fighter. He bounced back from a pair of unsightly 2011 losses, captured a title at middleweight and accounted himself bravely—if not successfully—in a unification match with Gennady Golovkin last October at Madison Square Garden.
He parlayed that into a last-bout-before-the-main-event slot against Glen Tapia on Alvarez's May show with Amir Khan, which theoretically means he’s in the mix for Alvarez—presuming Canelo wants to try out a real, powerful middleweight, just not a real, powerful one who was born in Kazakhstan.
And, oh, what a coincidence!
They just happen to be working with the same company, Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions.
“Yes, I do see (Lemieux) facing Canelo down the line. This was obviously by design. Right now Canelo is the man in boxing and he’s the pay-per-view star,” De La Hoya said, according to Dan Ambrose of BoxingNews24.com. “David Lemieux is, you know, coming back and wants to prove to everyone that he still belongs in the top of the middleweight division and is going to be world champion again.”
1. Gennady Golovkin
5 of 5
For a few hours in May at least, we all believed Alvarez might actually fight Gennady Golovkin.
Canelo recovered from a substandard start to disintegrate Khan with a single right hand and then flipped a middleweight championship belt across his shoulder, sidled up alongside HBO's Max Kellerman and brusquely told everyone what they wanted to hear.
Particularly Golovkin, who was there at ringside.
"Let me tell you," he said to Kellerman. "In Mexico, we don't f--k around. We don’t come to play in this sport. I fear no one in this sport. We can fight right now, we’ll put on the gloves again."
Problem was, the bravado lasted about as long as the perspiration.
Once cooler, more business-like heads prevailed, Alvarez and Co. instead decided to relinquish their claim on 160-pound supremacy and left Golovkin to his own devices while they pursued the 154-pound title belt that had been possessed by Smith.
Now they have that belt, which provides all the leverage they'll need to entertain fighters from the 147- and 154-pound ranks without having to go near a legitimately dangerous middleweight.
Canelo and his promotional apparatus are still teasing the prospect of a Golovkin fight for sometime next year, but given that Alvarez these days is boxing's version of Donald Trump—he can do whatever he wants and still fill a building full of screaming fans—it will be difficult to believe until it occurs.
.jpg?w=480 "Colts Jaguars Football")
