The Hottest Boxing Storylines for the Week of November 22
Saul "Canelo" Alvarez won the biggest fight of his career Saturday night when he took a unanimous decision and the middleweight championship from Miguel Cotto in Las Vegas.
The 25-year-old Mexican phenom was clearly the bigger and stronger man, and he used those advantages to connect on the more telling blows during the course of 12 tension-filled rounds.
With another exciting superfight looming, we ponder whether Canelo can be this generation's Oscar De La Hoya and take on tough challenges without fear of losing.
Next we take a look at the man who wasn't in the ring but still (in most eyes) remains the man to beat in the middleweight division, Gennady Golovkin.
We conclude by looking at the disaster that was Guillermo Rigondeaux's return on Saturday on the pay-per-view undercard, Wladimir Klitschko's fight Saturday night with Tyson Fury and James DeGale's defense against Lucian Bute.
These are the hottest boxing storylines for the week.
Will Canelo Be This Generation's Oscar De La Hoya?
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Canelo is a true throwback, that's for sure.
The 25-year-old now holds the keys to the kingdom in the 160-pound division and has shown a desire to seek out challenges, regardless of their difficulty or the chance that he could lose. He's a lot like his promoter and mentor, Oscar De La Hoya, in that regard.
De La Hoya lost six times in his Hall of Fame career, but he didn't duck any challenge and fought the best fighters of his era time and time again. He wanted the best fights against the best fighters, and he's imparted that lesson to his young charge.
Canelo has that same spirit of defiance and demand to measure himself against the very best, even if people around him think it's too soon, or there are easier paths to the same goals.
He faced Austin Trout, a difficult style for him, when he knew he was risking a Floyd Mayweather Jr. fight that was on the table. He fought Mayweather (a fight many felt was too soon for him) and lost a clear-cut decision, but he learned from those mistakes and bounced back with wins over Alfredo Angulo, Erislandy Lara (a fight nobody wanted to take then or now) and James Kirkland.
And now he's claimed the scalp of Cotto, a future Hall of Famer who seemed to reinvent himself under the tutelage of Freddie Roach.
It's also worth noting that in an era of fighting where top-level prospects are often brought along painfully slow and find themselves overmatched the first time they're in a real fight, Canelo has already accomplished more than many fighters do in their entire career, and he's nowhere near done.
What comes next?
Nobody was willing to commit on fight night, and it may be a fight or two away, but Canelo means what he says; he's going to fight Golovkin.
He might win, or he might lose, but he's going to fight, and that speaks volumes about this kid.
Where Does Gennady Golovkin Fit in This New Middleweight Pecking Order?
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Golovkin isn't the lineal middleweight champion, but you can be sure that more than a few people still consider him the division's best fighter. He staked his claim to 160-pound supremacy with a one-sided bludgeoning of tough power puncher David Lemieux in October in front of a sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden.
He holds the IBF, WBA and IBO middleweight straps, and you can be sure he'll be coming for the WBC's big green belt, now held by Canelo, in the near future. How soon remains to be seen.
Cotto didn't seem to have any interest in facing GGG, dancing around the subject whenever it came up, but the new sheriff in town has been open to the possibility, flexing his muscles at the post-fight presser and insisting he's ready when the question came up.
Prior to beating Cotto, Canelo insisted that he would be willing to face GGG but not at the full middleweight limit of 160 pounds. GGG subsequently rejected the idea of a catchweight, but the WBC has mandated that Canelo (by nature of his win) must now face Golovkin or risk being stripped of the title.
Belts are largely meaningless to fighters of Canelo's stature, so that won't really do much in terms of getting us a whole lot closer to the fight becoming a reality, even if it is a noble gesture by the WBC.
Plenty of things still need to go right—the weight issue, whether De La Hoya wants to immediately risk his young prodigy after what happened to Lemieux—but this fight will happen eventually.
It seems more likely for Canelo's second fight next year (De La Hoya said post-fight that Alvarez would be fighting again the first weekend in May and September 16 in 2016) than his first.
We just need to be a little patient.
Did Guillermo Rigondeaux Blow It...Again?
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The Rigondeaux bandwagon, in so much as it's still a thing, surely lost a few members after the 35-year-old former two-time Olympic gold medalist turned in one of the worst PPV performances in recent memory while dispatching a woefully overmatched Drian Francisco Saturday night.
You can talk until you're blue in the face about Rigo's technical proficiency (there is nobody better), but it's time to accept a hard truth: This guy just doesn't want to be a fighter.
Plain and simple.
Rigondeaux recently signed on with Roc Nation Sports (who must be loving its decision Sunday morning) and was a literal last-minute addition to the Cotto vs. Canelo undercard after Andre Ward pulled out with a knee injury. It was a huge opportunity for a fighter who was just stripped of his super bantamweight titles, hadn't fought in 11 months and was basically kicked off HBO because of his risk-averse style.
He completely outmatched Francisco in every area, but he did it with so little urgency and such minimal effort that the fans inside the arena (and we'd imagine watching at home on TV as well) booed lustily in many of the rounds.
There is no question that Rigo is a phenomenal natural boxing specimen. His technique and footwork are perfect, literally perfect, but there's no excuse for sitting back and landing single digits in punches per round against a guy who presents zero risk.
Especially given the stakes.
Yes, he took the fight on short notice, but what in his recent performances indicates anything would've been different if he had a month, two months or even six months to prepare?
Rigo has frequently been mentioned as an attractive foe for WBO featherweight champion (and fellow amateur standout) Vasyl Lomachenko, but what incentive do the people at HBO have to pull that fight together given this dreadful performance?
None.
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Can Tyson Fury End Dr. Steelhammer's Reign?
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Fury is a big, brash smack-talker from Great Britain who will get a chance Saturday night to either prove the critics wrong or eat his words in the form of missile right hands from heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko.
The fight is the most highly anticipated heavyweight title showdown in years, hopefully reinvigorating boxing's glamour division that has been long dormant without many legitimate contenders for Wlad's crown.
Klitschko is a future Hall of Fame fighter and one of the best big men of any era. He's the second-longest-reigning heavyweight champion of all time, and his 18 consecutive defenses are second only to the immortal Joe Louis', who is widely considered one of the best fighters in history.
But you wouldn't be wrong to point out that Wlad dominated an overall weak crop of heavyweight contenders. It was definitely a low point for the division, and that's why many fans are throwing their hope into Fury, if nothing else than in the expectation that he can push the champ in ways we haven't seen over the past decade or so.
Fury is undefeated, but he's taking a huge leap up in class for this fight. With all due respect, this isn't a domestic-level fight on the British Isles. It's the heavyweight championship of the world against a man who hasn't even been in trouble in a fight for more than 10 years.
The brash Brit will carry a height and reach advantage into the ring, but it's one thing to have those tools and another to be able to utilize them on this level against an experienced opponent.
Fury hasn't held his tongue during the promotion for this fight, promising, among other things a sixth-round knockout, and constantly trolling Klitschko in the way only he (and maybe Shannon Briggs) can. He even dressed up like Batman for a press conference.
The question is whether or not he'll rue all those antics in just a few days.
Will James DeGale Continue His Rise?
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DeGale came across the pond and captured his first world championship with a decisive win over Andre Dirrell on Premier Boxing Champions in May. He makes the first defense of his IBF Super Middleweight Championship against former titlist Lucian Bute on Saturday.
Bute has looked like a faded shell of the fighter who held a 168-pound title for nearly five years before being decimated and seemingly ruined in a brutal knockout loss to Carl Froch in 2012.
He hasn't beaten a high-level fighter since, dropping a wide decision to Jean Pascal and knocking out unheralded Andrea Di Luisa this past August on PBC.
Bute would seem to need to find some sort of a magic potion or time machine to bring us back to the fighter who was one of the best super middleweight fighters in the world not too long ago and have even a chance at upsetting the surging Brit.
DeGale is streaking fighter who has won 11 straight since dropping a majority decision to George Groves in 2011. There are plenty of attractive matchups on the table for the Hammersmith fighter, should he take care of business (as expected) and dispatch a fighter who still has a name but seemingly little else in the tank.
Kevin McRae is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. You can follow him on Twitter @McRaeWrites. All information, unless otherwise noted, was obtained firsthand.
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