Canelo doubts Andrade fight happens next

By Tim Royner

Boxingnews24.com

Saul Canelo Alvarez had some bad news for WBO middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade last Saturday night after his win over IBF champion Daniel Jacobs at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Andrade may need to wait until either December or May of next year for him to face Canelo in a unification fight for all the belts.

IBF/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Canelo (52-1-2, 35 KOs) pretty much ruled out a unification between him and Andrade after the fight last Saturday night, saying that it might be too soon for Demetrius to return to the ring to face him in September after he defends his title next month against Maciej Sulecki on June 29.

Canelo added Jacobs’ International Boxing Federation 160-pound title to his collection with an impressive 12 round unanimous decision by the scores 115-113, 115-113 and 116-112. When Canelo was properly motivated by Jacobs, he was schooling him badly, making him look like he didn’t belong inside the same ring with him. The fight was so one-sided at times, it looked like Canelo wasn’t fully mentally engaged. Jacobs wasn’t doing anything in there to make the fight competitive for long stretches.

“I’m happy to add another title to my history. The next step will be anything that brings up another challenge,” Canelo said at the post-fight news conference in talking about his next move. “My current goal is to fight for another title, but the other champion is fighting in June. My next fight is in September. That might be too close. We’re going to think about it as a team and come up with a decision. Whoever has the title, that’s our goal to unify all the belts and become the undisputed middleweight champion of the world.”

If Canelo doesn’t fight Andrade next, then he’ll likely look in the direction of fighting at 168 against one of the other belt holders in the division. Canelo currently still holds the WBA ‘regular’ 168-pound title that he won last December in beating Rocky Fielding.

Canelo will likely wait until after Andrade, 31, faces Sulecki next month before he makes a decision what direction he wants to go in for his next fight in September. It’s possible that if Andrade makes quick work of Sulecki on June 29th, he might be able to make a quick return to the ring in September. DAZN might want Canelo to make a decision soon about who his next opponent will be for next September. If Canelo waits until the Andrade vs. Sulecki fight on June 29th to make a decision on who he’ll be fighting next, it could be cutting it close.

“You saw what Danny did when he was southpaw. I’m the best southpaw out there,” Demetrius Andrade said last night about Jacobs landing some shots on Canelo when he was fighting out of the southpaw stance. “He [Canelo] fought well. He showed a high IQ.”

Jacobs wasn’t letting his hands go in the first half of the fight in the way he needed to for him to have a shot at winning the fight. Jacobs (35-3, 29 KOs) wanted to be busier, but Canelo did a great job of eluding his shots. When Jacobs started missing with his shots, you could tell that he was losing his self confidence. Jacobs was missing badly on a repeated basis even when he was right on top of Canelo. He was whiffing at air, an getting countered. It looked like Jacobs decided he wasn’t going to continue to put himself in a position where he was going to be embarrassed by Canelo. So he backed off, and just jabbed from the outside. When Jacob’s did land some shots successfully, he would back off instead of staying in the pocket. That made it hard for him to win the important rounds, because he was only fighting in spurts. Canelo was the one that was coming forward all the time taking chances.

“He’s the best middleweight,” unbeaten lightweight contender Ryan Garcia said to Fighthype about Canelo. “He took a good shot,” Ryan said about the big right hand that Canelo took from Jacobs in the ninth round. “Just keep the same pressure on people. Fight GGG in September. If it were up to me, I’d like to see him fight Errol Spence. As a fan, that would be cool. That’s a big dude. Right now, he looks passed 160. That would be an amazing fight. I still got Canelo, but that would be tough.”

It doesn’t look like Canelo or his promoters at Golden Boy Promotions want the fight with Golovkin in September. Although they say they’re more interested in unifying the middleweight and super middleweight divisions, it could be that they see Golovkin as the type of opponent that will shorten Canelo’s career due to how hard he hits. The second Canelo vs. GGG fight last September was an extremely grueling fight for both fighters. Since Canelo is the younger of the two, it hurts his career more than it does the 37-year-old Golovkin. GGG won’t be fighting too much longer, but Canelo still possibly has another 10 to 12 rounds before his career is over. But if Canelo keeps fighting GGG, he might not last too much longer as an elite level fighter. In Canelo’s last two fights against Rocky Fielding and Jacobs, he doesn’t look as good as he did in his two fights with GGG. That could be from all the huge shots that he took in those fights, especially in the second match. Some of the uppercuts that Canelo ate in the later rounds against GGG were the type that can have lasting damage. The right hand that Jacobs hit Canelo with in the ninth round is a similar type of punch, but it didn’t hurt him the way that the shots that Golovkin hit him with.

“It was just what we thought,” Canelo said. “We knew it would be a difficult fight. We just did our job.”

Jacobs lost close to $1 million with him coming in over the 170 pound weight limit for the secondary weigh-in on Saturday morning. This was the rehydration clause that Golden Boy Promotions put into the contract for the fight to limit how much weight Jacobs could gain back. Jacobs preferred to come in over the limit rather than force himself to make the weight and then be weak for the fight. Jacobs will still be walking away with close to $15 million for the fight, so he’s going to be okay.