Canelo Alvarez Flourishing Under Enormous Pressure to Be Spectacular
The weight of the entire boxing world was on his shoulders. But unlike Manny Pacquiao, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez was fit to carry the load.
"I am happy with the win," said Alvarez after knocking out James Kirkland. "The result was what I expected. I knew he was going to come on strong and be aggressive...But once I dropped him the first time, I knew I had him."
At the pre-fight press conference just days earlier, Golden Boy’s Bernard Hopkins made a joke during his uncharacteristically brief appearance at the podium. He asked if both fighters were injury free going into to the fight on Saturday so that there would be no excuses after the fact.
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Both fighters smiled and nodded. The media laughed. Hopkins, Oscar De La Hoya and the rest of the promoters on stage at the time grinned and nodded at each other in approval of Hopkins’ clever quote.
But the underlying issue was no joke at all. Boxing didn’t need another screw-up.
Pacquiao, just one week earlier, had come into the biggest and most important fight in boxing history and laid an egg. He looked terrible in the fight. He was slow, unsure of himself and straight-up outclassed by longtime rival Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a bout fight fans had waited six long years to see.
The fight was boring and one-sided.
Boxing had invited the entire world into the tent to see what they were missing by not going behind the curtain often enough. But all that was a revealed was a circus act, a farce of an exhibition in which one of the chief practitioners of the entire era went into the fight knowing full well he likely needed surgery on a torn rotator cuff in his right shoulder.
Pacquiao, and all involved in the fight, let boxing down.
Alvarez must have had a sense of how badly the sport needed something to cheer for when he entered the ring on Saturday night at Minute Maid Park in Houston. He wore a confident smile on his face all week long during the pre-fight events. He smiled and took pictures with the hordes of fans that chased him around anywhere and everywhere he went.
Alvarez was running for office. He told jokes. He shook hands. He kissed babies. He wants to be boxing’s next superstar, and boxing wants it back.
Alvarez went so far as to barely put any mustard on the ceremonial first pitch he threw from the mound before Wednesday night’s baseball game between the Houston Astros and the Texas Rangers at Minute Maid Park.
After all, he might have reasoned, his shoulders would need to be at full strength on fight night.
His Round 3 knockout over Kirkland was an amazing scene, both inside the ring and out. Whatever strength was saved in his shoulders from his half-hearted toss of the baseball was on full display against Kirkland, just as it absolutely had to be.
After all, they had come to see him, even if most had to settle for doing it from hundreds of yards away. The cheap seats were loud and raucous and brimming with affection. They love him. You could see it in their eyes. You could hear it in their voices. They wore the red, white and green of Mexico. They had headbands emblazoned with his name on them in bright, white letters. They adorned themselves in various designs of T-shirts and hats, some clearly bought at the venue that evening but some also clearly brought from their homes, items that appeared to have been worn around town many times before. They sang songs with his name in them.
Canelo! They came to see Canelo, and they screamed his name as loud and as often as they could so that he knew that they were there.
The anticipation was made worse by the Texas-sized undercard. There were 15 fights on the card originally. The first bout was set to kick off at 11 a.m. local time. But the featured undercard bout between junior welterweights Frankie Gomez and Humberto Soto was scrapped after those attending the pre-fight weigh-in witnessed Gomez come in seven-and-a-half pounds over the 140-pound weight limit.
Two other fights were called off too. Welterweight James Leija Jr., son of former fighter now promoter Jesse James Leija, wasn’t able to make his professional debut when his opponent, Eric Butler, missed weight too.
Meanwhile, Galveston, Texas, heavyweight Eugene Hill must have scared the fight right out of his opponent. Chris Vendola flat-out disappeared on Saturday with no one the wiser.
Or maybe it was just too much. Maybe Vendola knew how badly boxing needed Alvarez to look spectacular. Maybe he knew all that was at stake for the kid and couldn’t bear to watch.
Over 31,000 fans were in their seats by the time Alvarez entered the arena. Everyone was there to see him, and everyone was hoping he’d be spectacular.
They booed when native Texan Kirkland walked to the ring dressed in all black trimmed in blood red wearing a white towel over his head as if it were a crown. His face wore the disposition of someone heading to a funeral, and the fact he was being booed as if he were the villain of some great drama about to unfold did not seem to go unnoticed.
He had vengeance in his eyes.
Alvarez strolled to the ring in the red, white and green of Mexico. His demeanor was serious. He appeared the player in a high-stakes poker game who knows he has a great hand but remains unsure about what the other guys have. The crowd cheered loudly for him, and Alvarez couldn’t help but to let a smile break through the cold iciness he carried with him before.
When he entered the ring, it was deafening. It stayed that way until the fight was over.
Alvarez obliterated Kirkland, and he had to do it three times. He knocked him down once in Round 1 and twice in Round 3 before Kirkland was down for good. The Austin American-Statesman’s Cedric Golden, sitting at ringside, likened Kirkland to a rabid animal. “You can’t tame him the way you can others,” said Golden. “You have to shoot him dead.”
Alvarez shot Kirkland dead with a looping right hand at 2:19 of Round 3. It was a picture-perfect knockout shot, one that was set up with a feint to the body and will be celebrated forever as the epitome of strategic violence.
And it capped the perfect-case scenario for Alvarez. He obliterated a tough, hard-charging foe that tested his mettle like no one had done before. He outslugged, outboxed and outthought him at every turn in just about as dominant a performance as one could ever hope to have over a fighter as good and as in-shape as Kirkland.
Canelo delivered.
With all of Mexico looking at him to make up for the early demise of Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and no other prospect anywhere close to his level of superstardom, Canelo delivered.
With all the mainstream fans that saw the defensive genius of Mayweather last week and wondered if boxing had maybe passed them by for good, Canelo delivered.
With all the hardcore boxing fans just hoping to see a good, old-fashioned throw down after Mayweather-Pacquiao turned out to be a long, boring track meet, Canelo delivered.
And with all the most influential HBO executives there watching him do his thing, including HBO Sports President Ken Hershman—with Roc Nation Sports President David Itskowitch there clearly to at least entertain the idea of a Canelo vs. Miguel Cotto superfight later this year—with all the world watching and hoping to see a prizefight actually worthy of celebration, Canelo Alvarez delivered.
The kid’s a star.
Unless otherwise noted, all quotes and information was obtained firsthand.
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