Canelo comments on GGG victory: “It was nice to shut mouths with facts”

By Sean Jones: Two months after his second controversial fight against former middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, Saul Canelo Alvarez is gloating about the win, saying it was a good feeling for him to shut-up his critics, and also stating that he views himself now as the best fighter in boxing.

Canelo (50-1-2, 34 KOs) seems oblivious to the legions of boxing fans who saw him as the loser of both of his fights against GGG, and seen as being given decisions only because he was fighting in Las Vegas, Nevada. Canelo either doesn’t care what the majority of the boxing world are saying about his two controversial decisions or he simply is choosing to ignore than and just focus on the results from the Nevada judges.

“Everything that was said about me and the attacks made against me as a person-well, I demonstrated what I’m really made of in my last fight. That’s the nicest feeling-to be able to shut mouths with facts,” Canelo said.

Boxing News 24 had Golovkin winning the rematch against Canelo last September by a 115-113. In the first fight, B24 scored it for GGG over Canelo by a 116-112 score last year on September 16, 2017. That was the infamous fight in which one judge scored it for Canelo 10 rounds to 2. The scoring for both fights looked completely off from the way the boxing public saw the fight. Canelo is very popular, and a lot of people see fights involving him as unbeatable when it comes to decision fights. The judges scored the Canelo-GGG 2 rematch 115-113, 115-113 for Canelo, and 114-114.

What hurt’s Canelo’s ability to be viewed as deserving a draw in the first GGG fight, and a win in the second is his positive test for for the performance enhancing substance clenbuterol. When boxing fans see a fighter like Canelo testing positive for a PED like clenbuterol and notice how his physique suddenly has become more muscular and vascular, they naturally assume that he was using the substance while preparing for both fights. It doesn’t matter that Canelo tested clean for both fights against Golovkin. The combination of Canelo testing positive earlier this year in February, and the way that his physique looked different compared to previous fights during his career in the eyes of boxing fans, it’s enough to think he was using PEDs as a performance enhancer to help him beat Golovkin. Since there wasn’t testing for Canelo 365 days a year, it’s impossible for fans to know whether he was clean for both Golovkin fights or not. All the fans know is Canelo tested positive earlier this year for clenbuterol, and his body looked different for both GGG fights compared to his other fights.

“Like I’ve always said, I’ve always considered myself to be the best and now more so than ever,” Canelo said. “I’m here because of that and because of that motivation to be the best. To be on the pound for pound list or not-that’s something that neither excites me nor upsets me. I’m just happy with what I’ve done and satisfied with what I am doing.”

Canelo isn’t viewed as the #1 fighter in boxing, and you can argue that his two controversial fights with GGG is the reason for that. Additionally, Canelo’s positive test for clenbuterol taints the results of both fights with Gennady. If Canelo were to sign up for around the clock testing for PEDs, he might be able to move to #1 if he beat the top guys at 160 and 168 without controversy, but it’s unclear if he’ll do that. Not only would Canelo need to sign up for testing 24/7, 365 days a year to win over suspicious boxing fans, but he would also need to beat the following fighters WITHOUT controversy in a neutral venue: Golovkin,Jermall Charlo, Daniel Jacobs, Billy Joe Saunders, Callum Smith and Demetrius Andrade. If Canelo sweeps the table against those guys, he’ll definitely deserve to be rated #1 in the pound-for-pound ratings. But he would need to win those fights decisively, and not by controversial decisions. Can Canelo do that? I’m not so sure. Controversy has followed Canelo around in his biggest fights of his career against GGG twice, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Austin Trout and Erislandy Lara. What’s interesting is that most of those fights took place in Las Vegas, Nevada. The only fight of that bunch that didn’t take place in Vegas was Canelo’s bout against Trout, which went down in San Antonio, Texas.

Canelo will be inside the ring next month challenging WBA ‘regular’ super middleweight champion Rocky Fielding (27-1, 15 KOs) on December 15 at Madison Square Garden in New York. The fight will be streamed on DAZN in the U.S. Some boxing fans see Canelo electing to fight Fielding in New York as a way of showing the public that he’s not reliant on Nevada to win fights. Of course, Canelo’s choice of Fielding as the opponent that he’s facing outside of Nevada takes away a lot of the impact of him deciding to fight outside of his favorite venue Las Vegas. Fielding isn’t considered by fans to be the best champion at 168. On the contrary, Fielding is viewed as the weakest of the champions by many boxing fans. Fielding is a guy that was knocked out in the 1st round by Callum Smith in 2015. Fielding’s wins since that loss has been against fighters that were arguably ham-and-egger types, and not the best. Canelo fighting Fielding is viewed as little more than a way for him to become a three-division world champion the easy way without any risk. It’s comparable to how Floyd Mayweather picked UFC fighter Conor McGregor as his opponent to break Rocky Marciano’s 49-0 record. The Nevada State Athletic Commission unbelibly sanctioned the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight as a professional fight despite Conor never having fought before inside a boxing ring. It was pretty shocking. It’s like a high school football team being allowed to play an NFL team in the Super Bowl.

“It would be a big landmark in my career to be one of fewer than 10 Mexicans to win a world title in three divisions,” Canelo said about him potentially beating Rocky Fielding to become a three division world champion next month. “It’s a big challenge for us and an important landmark that I want in my career.”

It would mean a lot more if Canelo picked out one of the talented champions at 168 like Callum Smith, Jose Uzcategui or Gilberto Ramirez to try and win a world title at super middleweight rather than facing Fielding. The boxing fans would certainly respect Canelo a lot more if he beat one of those fighters rather than picking the weakest link to capture another division title the easy way.