A professional boxing evening will take place in Las Vegas (USA) on the night of 14-15 September. The main event of the tournament will see the famous Mexican boxer Saul Alvarez defend his championship belts against the undefeated American Edgar Berlanga.
The highest-paid boxer today, Saul Alvarez, has been playing professionally for almost 20 years, since 2005. Even though Canelo is considered one of the most successful boxers on the planet, there are doubts about his career, or more precisely, about his opponents.
Alvarez started out in Mexico, where he built up a solid record. True, in his fifth fight in the professional ring, Saul drew against his compatriot Jorge Juarez. For a long time, this draw was the only failure of the Mexican boxer, although, of course, the opposition left much to be desired. For example, in 2008 he fought Francisco Villanueva with a record of 5-17-2 and won only by split decision. A little earlier, he faced Shane Holly with a record of 8-21-2 and Jesus Hernandez with a record of 16-13-1 – in general, Canelo had many officials as opponents at the beginning of his career.
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Saúl Álvarez – Edgar Berlanga: Canelo will make a new campaign for the absolute title. LIVE
Of course, the level of opposition gradually grew, Alvarez reached the title fight at junior middleweight, where he shared the ring with Briton Matthew Hatton with a record of 41-4-2. It was also Hatton’s first title fight, and Saul took the victory by unanimous decision. He managed to defend his belt five times, including in a fight with Shane Mosley, although Mosley was 41 years old at that time. This, by the way, is an indicative moment – in Canelo’s career there were enough such examples when the Mexican fought with opponents who were already in a noticeable decline.
In 2013, the Mexican fought perhaps the most famous fight of his career – against the undefeated Floyd Mayweather. The fight received enormous attention and, as a result, became one of the three best-selling fights in boxing history. True, the fight did not go in favor of the younger Canelo – the experienced Floyd managed to impose his style on the Mexican and take the victory by majority vote of the judges. It is surprising that one referee saw Alvarez win in this fight, but the other two confidently preferred the American.
After that, Saul set off to conquer a new category – middleweight. There he became world champion, but before that he almost lost to the unknown Cuban Erislandy Lara, who, by the way, currently also holds the championship belt. Of the serious opposition in the new division, perhaps only Amir Khan was there, whom Alvarez brutally knocked out. Yes, Saul defended the belt against former junior middleweight world champion Liam Smith and won, but Smith lost, for example, to Magomed Kurbanov, so this success is not at all indicative.
In Alvarez’s career, the trilogy with Gennady Golovkin stands out. When Golovkin was at his peak, the boxers had two extremely close fights: the first ended in a draw, the second with a victory for Alvarez. The decisions of both judges caused a stir, as Golovkin did enough to win in both cases. The Mexican had two very difficult fights with Gennady Pico, and before the second he was completely disqualified for doping. The third fight took place in 2022, when Golovkin turned 40. Alvarez’s victory was more convincing and, perhaps, deserved, but one must take into account the age and form of the boxers. The Mexican achieved convincing victories when he shared the ring with opponents who were past their peak.
Here we can give an example when Alvarez, being world champion at the second middleweight, moved up to the light heavyweight division and knocked out Sergey Kovalev. With all due respect to Crusher and his past achievements, he was far from optimal in 2019 and seemed to have gone out simply to earn a paycheck. And he earned it. And Canelo won the title in a new category for him, although he later returned to super middleweight, where he still dominates.
Saul Alvarez
Photo: Fake Images
But it is impossible to consider Alvarez’s opposition as the top. Saul seized all the belts and was able to choose his own contenders, which, in fact, he used. Alvarez avoided dangerous challenges, with the exception of another attempt to climb to the light heavyweight division and take the belt from another Russian, Dmitry Bivol. Unfortunately for the Mexican, Dmitry at that time was in excellent shape, was young, hungry and took Saul to a boxing school. The judges again tried to reinforce Alvarez’s victory, but they could not rob Bivol in such a fight: 115-113 on the cards of all judges in favor of Dmitry.
After that, Saul and his team began to approach the choice of their opponents more carefully and no longer took risks. John Ryder did not have enough stars in the sky, Jermell Charlo moved up two weight classes for a check and lost all his junior middleweight titles, and Jaime Munguia, with all his merits and a perfect record of 43-0, was not known outside of Mexico. Now Alvarez’s opponent is Edgar Berlanga, who is also not very well known in the professional community, although he has the coveted “0” in the loss column: Edgar simply has not had any opposition close to Alvarez’s level.
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It turns out that in his two most serious fights, with Floyd Mayweather and Dmitry Bivol, Alvarez lost. He would have lost in the first two fights with Golovkin if the judges had not been so determined that the Mexican would win. Saul failed in all the serious tests of his career, and this is also an indicator.
Of course, Alvarez has a colossal career behind him, in which a lot of effort was put not only for himself, but also for his team. Saul has repeatedly defeated both world champions and undefeated boxers, but still the defeats to Floyd and Dmitry, as well as the controversial refereeing decisions in the fights with Golovkin, will always haunt him.
