Canelo Alvarez’s favourite boxer ever isn’t Mexican
Undisputed super-middleweight champion and pound-for-pound great, Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, has declared who his favourite boxer ever is, and the answer may surprise many fight fans.
Canelo – whose nickname derives from his ‘Cinnamon’ coloured hair – debuted at the age of just 16-years-old in Mexico back in 2005 and faced a future world champion in just his third career fight, defeating Miguel Vazquez on the eventual IBF super-lightweight champion’s professional debut.
Six years later, after defeating the likes of Jose Miguel Cotto and Carlos Baldomir, Canelo found himself challenging ‘Magic’ Matthew Hatton for the vacant WBC super-welterweight title and comfortably outpointed the Brit to pick up his first world title and begin an infamous run against challengers from the UK.
Wins against Ryan Rhodes, Shane Mosley and Austin Trout proved that the undefeated Mexican was the future of the sport, unifying the 154lbs titles before taking on a true legend in Floyd Mayweather Jr. It was here where Alvarez found out that there will always be someone better than you, losing a majority-decision that did not represent the schooling he received that night.
Since then, Alvarez has grown from a prospect into a man and conquered both the middleweight and super-middleweight divisions, as well as becoming a four-division champion with a knockout win over Sergey ‘The Krusher’ Kovalev in 2019 up at light-heavyweight.
However, Canelo attempted this feat once again in 2022 and came up short as Dmitry Bivol handed the ‘face of boxing’ a second career defeat.
In the three outings since, Alvarez has simply not looked the same, outpointing an ageing Gennadiy Golovkin as well as John Ryder and Jermell Charlo – three opponents that his fans believe he should have been able to stop. As a result, many believe that Canelo’s time at the peak of the sport may be coming to an end and that it is the time for the ‘passing of the torch’.
The man attempting to dethrone Canelo is his undefeated countryman, Jaime Munguia, who has come out on top in all 43 of his professional contests, aged just 27-years-old.
Speaking to DAZN Boxing, Canelo revealed that his favourite boxer who had to deal with a similar scenario when he faced George Foreman in the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ and proved that wisdom and experience is more than capable of coming out on top against a younger, undefeated, hungry opponent.
“My favourite is boxer is Muhammad Ali,” the 33-year-old revealed.
We will find out whether the ringcraft and boxing IQ of Alvarez can deny Munguia’s rite of passage to becoming an undisputed world champion when the pair meet on May 4th in Las Vegas on DAZN pay-per-view.
The bill also features a welterweight WBA world title showdown between Eimantas Stanioinis and Gabriel Maestre, as well as two WBC interim title bouts.