10 Things We Learned from Saul Alvarez vs. Matthew Hatton

Saturday night at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California, we were treated to a solid night of exciting fights. For those of you who have never seen Saul "Canelo" Alvarez fight before, you probably finally did on HBO.

For the hardcore boxing fans and many Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, we already know about Canelo because of his undeniable hype that seems to keep on building up like the Backstreet Boys in 1999.

But even Canelo's biggest fans must feel deep in their hearts that there are still a lot of unanswered questions about this young fighter. We were supposed to get some answers from this Alvarez/Hatton fight. However, I—as well as many of my media colleagues—am not sure if we are any better off knowing anything 

For those of you not in attendance at the Honda Center, here are 10 things that we learned sitting at ringside.

No. 10: James Kirkland is BACK! America needs an all-American hero badass—an exciting fighter who does not run, hide, hug or hold; a fighter who is explosive and goes for the knockout.

Kirkland can very well be that fighter to get America hyped once again. You cannot write a better back story. If he can get back in the ring as soon as possible—and as frequently as possible—he can definitely be a force once again. American boxing needs him, and we should be happy that he appears to be the same beast he was prior to prison.

No. 9: One of my colleagues told me that the Honda Center is a great venue to watch the fights as a fan, but as part of the media, it sucks. He had many complaints—as did some of my other colleagues. They complained that the alcohol is not sold past 9 p.m. on the dot. Saturday night, they stopped it even sooner than 7:30 p.m.

Also, he complained that they do not serve the media complimentary catered food. I guess this depends on which sport and who the promoter is; last night, Oscar De La Hoya made sure there was catered food.

They also complained that much of the media had limited access to the Internet, and only a few rows of the media were given a table to use their laptops and outlets to plug in their needed devices. I saw this to be true.

Many who were seated at the tables did not even have a laptop and were not even writing anything. Certain journalists—like myself and everyone in our press row section—had to conserve our battery life and actually type on our laps since we had no table and no outlet to plug in our laptops.

Also, literally the second after the fighters gave their closing speeches, the cleanup crew started aggressively stacking up all the chairs in the press row and told us we had to move at once. WTF? I've never seen that before. Usually when I cover a fight, you have a good 30 minutes to an hour to wrap up your articles and such after the final fight.

The postfight conference room looks severely dated and tiny—like something out of a bad 1980s movie.

But probably the worst and the most torturing thing about being in the media that night was that they had a crappy band playing crappy music on a stage placed right behind us. The music was so loud, blasting into the back of our heads, that I had to take a few laps around the Honda Center until the Ponce De Leon vs. Broner fight began.

Next time, please place the crappy band facing the audience so their crappy music isn't blasting directly to the back of our heads. 

No. 8: On the televised HBO portion of the fight card, Ponce De Leon took on Broner in a 10-round super featherweight intercontinental title match. The almost completely Mexican crowd booed hard whenever Broner would stick and move out of harm's way, but they cheered even louder when Ponce De Leon threw and landed anything at all—even if it was partially or mostly blocked by Broner.

In short, Ponce De Leon won the crowd unanimously while Broner won the fight unanimously, according to the judges. So which means more for a fighter? Well, I guess that depends on who you ask. When Broner left the ring, he was the target of everyone's garbage—including full beer cups as he left the ring into the locker rooms.

Personally, I hate to see this display of disrespect to any fighter. Then again, these people throwing their garbage on him could have been from a certain part of the country where you have to throw your garbage on the fighter who just out-boxed your country's fighter.

No. 7: I spoke to top trainer Robert Garcia after the fight. He is probably one of the nicest, hardest-working trainers in the sport. Garcia told me he feels and hopes that Nonito Donaire's next fight will be in Oakland against Moreno, as planned for the end of May. Robert also feels Margarito will fight Cotto next—should Cotto get past Mayorga—and he said they are aiming for that fight to be in Vegas.

I joked with him, saying he never gets a break, and he said he is on a mini-break until March 26 when fellow family-stablemate Miguel Garcia fights.

Finally, probably the biggest bomb dropped on me in a very long time was when I asked how training with Fernando Vargas is going for his comeback fight. He said that he is not training Vargas, because he is training in Vegas currently with Floyd Mayweather Sr (YEAH, WHOA! EXACTLY).

No. 6:  I spoke to HBO boxing color commentator Max Kellerman after the fight, and asked him who he feels can fill the HBO void of Manny Pacquiao leaving to Showtime. He said he feels it could be Nonito Donaire.

No. 5: Standing behind was a bunch of drunk Canelo fanatics who were cheering on their man all while talking a lot of crap. They were of Mexican descent, and spoke their trash talk in English with a strong Mexican accent.  

Some of the things that was said was, "The only way Canelo can lose this fight is if he has a heart attack all of a sudden." This guy said this about six times. I am not sure if he forgot he already said it, or he wanted to say it until I transcribed it in my live blog article. 

Another guy then said, "Hatton, you should just quit and go back home to Germany." Now, I could be wrong, but last time I checked, Hatton was from the UK where his most famous brother was a god for several years. 

What is the point I am trying to make here? Well, I'll keep it positive and just say this: Be respectful and do not trash talk to your fighter's opponents. If you are going to, at least be funny and intelligent. Do not be ignorant and make yourself look like you are not educated enough to clean either fighter's spit buckets. 

I really wish this guy chose to talk his trash in Spanish so that I could not fully understand just how ignorant his comments were.

No. 4: Oscar De La Hoya was a very fan-friendly, media-friendly Golden Boy that night. I personally saw Oscar taking time to take photo ops and sign autographs for all his fans who were trying to get to him despite the barrier between them. I even saw him catch a hat that was thrown down for him to sign, and throw it back up to a fan sitting on the higher section.

Afterwards, behind the corridors of the backstage section, Oscar took time to do individual soundbites for all of the mostly-Mexican media. They asked him everything from the rumor that he is coming back to the ring to if he would fight Canelo. Oscar said no to both. I do understand some Spanish.

No. 3: While I was covering this fight, a few of my friends were calling/texting me to hang out afterwards. They all were wondering what the hell I was doing at the Honda Center since they know nothing about boxing. I told them I was covering the fight that's on HBO. So they turned on HBO and saw Canelo and Hatton stare each other down. Most of the girls told me they liked that Canelo looked like he is a nice guy and a cute little boy. 

No. 2: I personally already knew this, but for those of you who did not, Mexicans are the most hardcore boxing fans—period. I have been to hundreds of fights as a fan and as media member. It is not even close for the race for No. 1 pound-for-pound ethnic Super Fans.

The Mexicans destroy all other ethnicities when it comes to being a boxing fan and coming out to the fights in full force to back up their fighters. For Canelo to be a virtual unknown outside of the Mexican community and hardcore boxing fans, it is truly impressive that he can almost single-handedly sell out the Honda Center. People say boxing is dead or dying, but unless Mexicans are extinct like dinosaurs, boxing will always be alive and breathing hard forever.

No. 1: What did we learn about Canelo as a fighter from the Hatton fight? Not much, unfortunately. All of the question marks about him are pretty much unanswered. Hatton was spoon fed to him as an easy-padded opponent—meaning one who was smaller, slower, could not hit hard and was not a significant threat on any level. And despite all of that, Canelo was still not able to stop him.

Hatton showed us that a fighter who is above-average to elite will give Canelo issues. A fighter who has decent defense, a chin and speed/power will probably give Canelo problems or beat him.

At the same time, Canelo is only 20 years old and has more than enough time to improve.

Personally, I learned that Canelo is actually an intelligent fighter who prefers to counter-punch and break down his opponents instead of just going for the wild toe-to-toe war or knockout like his more traditional Mexican countrymen tend to do.

At this stage of his career, I honestly do not see him beating any of the elite 154-lb champions. That even goes for the top elite 147 lbs. fighters as well.

If we were to keep it real, Canelo will most likely be heavily protected/padded until the super fights are just too big to refuse. By that time, his hype will be so big that even with a loss or two, he will still be a huge draw—just like his mentor, Oscar De La Hoya.

Is Canelo the real deal? Well, we cannot say for sure yet because of his limited resume and opponents. What is clear is that his hype is what boxing needs, and he will most likely be around for a long time.

So, for all of you fellow red-haired, freckled-faced Mexicans, stand up and be proud. For you now have a voice, and he is getting more popular than a 2010 version of Justin Bieber.

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