Chavez Jr: “Canelo is going down” on May 6

Boxingnews24.com

By Dan Ambrose: Julio Cesar Chavez Jr says Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (48-1-1, 34 KOs) is going to go down in their pay-per-view big Mexican clash on May 6 on HBO at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Chavez Jr. says the boxing public wants to see Canelo get knocked out. Canelo is taking on a real fighter, says Chavez Jr., and not the smaller or older guys that he’s been facing during his career.

Chavez Jr. sees himself as a different type of fighter than the 26-year-old Canelo, who he thinks has been pampered by his promoters at Golden Boy Promotions with a lot of soft matches. Chavez Jr. think Canelo has been steered around the best fighters in boxing all these years, and hasn’t fought the best. One fighter in particular, Gennady Golovkin, is one that Chavez Jr. thinks that Canelo has been avoiding because he’s afraid of him and knows he’ll lose to him. Chavez Jr. makes it a point to tell the boxing media that he’ll take the fight with Golovkin in a second after he beats Canelo on May 6.

“This fight will be an amazing fight of the year,” said De La Hoya to Villianfy in talking about the Canelo vs. Chavez Jr. fight. “Name one other pay-per-view star other than Canelo. We have him. Nobody has him. Nobody knows how to build pay-per-view stars. We do. So if he loses, it’s a great fight and we’ll do it again. That’s what boxing is all about. I have to tell young fighters this. Records aren’t everything. It’s how you fight. I could have been 60-0 if I wanted. That could have been easy, but are you going to have the respect of the people? Am I going to lay down in bed at night and think, ‘I should have fought the best in their prime?’ That’s what it’s all about for me. It’s a matter of how you fight, how you go about losing, you know, because if you go out fighting with passion, then you come out a winner,” said De La Hoya.

Canelo is a special case when it comes to him becoming a PPV attraction. Some would argue that Canelo’s popularity is more for how he looks than what he’s actually done inside the boxing ring. Some fans believe that Canelo is popular for having red hair, because it sets him apart from a lot of the other fighters in his country of Mexico. There have been fighters that have accomplished more than Canelo from Mexican like Juan Manuel Marquez, and he’s not nearly as popular.

The question why is Canelo more popular than a fighter like Marquez? De La Hoya can’t say that he and Golden Boy Promotions are any better than any other promotional company at building PPV stars, because they only have 1 star. Golden Boy hasn’t created anyone else, and they don’t have anyone in the pipeline that will soon be a PPV star.

Once Canelo stops being a PPV attraction in the future, it’s questionable whether Golden Boy will have someone to replace him as a PPV guy. Top Rank still doesn’t have a PPV replacement for Manny Pacquiao. They signed 2016 Olympian Shakur Stevenson recently, but we don’t know if he’ll ever be a PPV type fighter. The same goes for Olympian Oscar Valdez and Vasyl Lomachenko.

“I haven’t tested positive in my career,” said Canelo Alvarez about Chavez Jr. via Villianfy Media. “He’s tested positive 2 o 3 times. He should shut-up and worry about himself. I’m not a current world champion at middleweight now. As far as the weight, I’m not looking past this fight. I’m focused, but I’m now staying at middleweight. I’ll stay at 160 pounds,” said Canelo.

“For a long time, people wanted to know who would win between me and Canelo,” said Chavez Jr. “I think I’m the boxer who can best represent my country, because I’m a boxer who has always come up against the best,” said Chavez Jr.

Chavez Jr. has fought some good fighters during his career in Andrzej Fonfara, Andy Lee, Sergio Martinez and Marco Antonio Rubio. However, he still hasn’t fought a huge amount of top fighters. You can say that Lee, Fonfara and Martinez were really good fighters, but that’s only 3 guys. Most of the rest of the fighters Chavez Jr. has fought have been nothing special. Canelo is in the same boat in fighting only 4 good fighters during his 12-year pro career.

Canelo has fought Austin Trout, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Erislandy Lara and Miguel Cotto. Canelo has fought a lot of older former world champions like Carlos Baldomir, Cotto, Shane Mosley and Kermit Cintron. By the time that Canelo fought them, they were all over-the-hill. It’s kind of sad that Canelo and Chavez Jr. have both fought so few talented fighters still in their prime. You would think that they both had fought a lot of great fighters in their careers given their high amount of victories on their records.

“I’m a fighter who came from the bottom, and he’s the opposite,” said Canelo about Chavez Jr. “Having the great support of his father and not being able to take advantage. I came making my own path, and my own name,” said Canelo.

Canelo likes to point out that he came from a poor background and had to climb his way to the top unlike Chavez Jr., who was fortunate to have a successful father that made a lot of money in his boxing career. I don’t think it really matters to the average fan whether Canelo and Chavez Jr. were poor or rich in growing up. I think the fans are more focused on the here and now, and more interested in the fight rather than where the fighters came from in terms of their economic backgrounds.

For the most part, boxing fans want to be entertained without being overwhelmed with needless facts about the backgrounds of fighters. If it makes Canelo feel good to point out how different his background was from Chavez Jr., then so be it, but I don’t think it does much in building interest in their fight. Canelo would be better off talking trash or showing off his lifetime possessions. We saw how Floyd Mayweather Jr. was able to create a lot of interest in himself by showing off his huge mansions and expensive cars.

“That they dislike each other is an understatement,” said Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya. “These guys can’t stand each other, and it boils down to 6-7 years ago when Chavez Jr. was criticizing Canelo because of who he was facing. He was winning his fights because of who he was facing. He was winning his fights easily. The TV made him. He’s not a real fighter,” said De La Hoya.

It’s definitely true that Canelo and Chavez Jr. do not like each other. It’s hard to believe that Chavez Jr. was not too long ago more popular than Canelo back in 2012. Chavez Jr. squandered his popularity by not getting back into the ring quickly following his loss to Sergio Martinez. Chavez Jr. failed to stay in shape, and he failed to fight often in the way he needed to for him to continue to be a popular fighter.

If Chavez Jr. could have stayed in stop shape and fought 3 times per year the way Gennady Golovkin has, it’s quite likely that he’d still be more popular than Canelo.

“If people criticize me, that’s normal,” said Canelo. “But when it’s my opponent, and he doesn’t have the balls to say it to my face, that’s when it bothers me. He talks a lot, he said a lot of things about me, and I became ever more prominent than him. So it’s been a rivalry of many years. Pride, honor in this fight than anything else, that’s the big motivation it gives us. The challenge for me going up against Julio is to keep advancing, to keep writing my own story as a fighter,” said Canelo.

Canelo is going to need to do a lot more than beating Chavez Jr. and living off that win if he wants to further his own story in boxing. Canelo is going to need to stop dragging his feet and face the better fighters for a change. That means Canelo must fight Golovkin, Daniel Jacobs and Jermall Charlo. If Canelo is serious about wanting to fight at 160 from now on, then he must face Charlo, Golovkin and Jacobs. If he can fight any of them, then he’s going to be seen as a ducker by a lot of boxing fans.

“This time it’s personal,” said Chavez Jr. “It’s something that will remain in history.”

“I think this is a fight where Julio will bring out his potential,” said Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. “We’re going to shut a lot of mouths. This is the fight where Julio has to show that he has my genes. That he has my balls,” said Chavez Sr.

Chavez Jr’s potential might not be good enough for him to shake off the 5 years of inactivity and poor conditioning. When you’ve been dealing with the kind of weight problems that Chavez Jr. has had, you’re not going to be able to get back to what you could have been had you kept in shape all those years. I don’t think it’s possible for a person to get back to their maximum potential if they’ve let themselves go physically for 5 or more years.

“Canelo, prepare for May 6th. You’re going down,” said Chavez Jr. “The people want to see you on the ground, and that’s what they’re going to see. Now you’re fighting a real fighter, not an old guy or a little guy,” said Chavez Jr.

There’s definitely a lot of boxing fans that want to see Canelo get knocked out in this fight, because many fans see him as arrogant and full of himself over his small handful of wins over prominent fighters. A lot of fans think Canelo is still an unproven fighter that has gotten too big for his britches without having shown that he deserves to see himself as a great talent. If Canelo had beaten Golovkin 2 years ago, as well as both Charlo brothers, Demetrius Andrade, Erislandy Lara [without controversy], and Daniel Jacobs, then fans would see him in a different light.

“The paths they’ve taken have been different, but they all lead to the same finish line,” said De La Hoya. “That’s because they’re the very best in Mexican boxing today. We’re going to see a great fight. Put aside the hate they have for one another. They really, really hate each other. Just the fact that they’re both Mexican and they have so much pride involved. There’s not one fight I can remember where you have 2 Mexicans and they gave us a dull fight. It’s impossible,” said De La Hoya.