Canelo taking on the modern greats

By James Blears

Saul “Canelo” Alvarez is today the face and fists of Mexican Boxing.

It`s his dedication, intelligence and learning curve ability, complimenting his distinctive and striking appearance, which have brought success, and with it fortune and fame, to flame hair.

A professional boxer since he was just fifteen tender years of age,  Saul now aged 29 is at his matured and fully developed peak. He can unleash power, but does so selectively, subtly, and judicially. Father and son team Jose and Eddy Reynoso have been alongside Saul through thick and thin.  The quality of loyalty and team work count for something!

When this ghastly Pandemic has finally subsided, it`s likely that Saul will fight for a third time against Gennady Golovkin. This is more appealing that a warm up against the appalling: “Condemned through his own mouth,” Billy Joe Saunders. Saul not unnaturally says that after twenty four rounds, his and Triple G`s  paths should now fork out and go their separate ways, but as the Monty Python Team told Chartered Accountant Wilkins: “There`s no room for sentiment in…big business.”

It`s hard to know, just how long any boxer can successfully navigate a career will full control.  Some peak very early and then fizzle out, falling to earth like a spent meteorite.  Others mature malt whisky style, and are still delivering vintage performances into their thirties. A single malt has single shot quality as well as power! Juan Manuel Marquez was a prime example of this.

Eventually when he hangs up his gloves, Saul will be assessed and accessed on the golden scale, charting all  time great middleweights, and this IS an illustrious weight division with a mighty impressive history.  Pedigree…chum/amigo!

Comparing champions from different eras, is fraught with thorny issues.  Times change, but there are some superstars who surpass, surmount and suppress the test of time, due to  their extraordinary gifts and fabulous skill sets.  Sugar Ray Robinson, Carlos Monzon and Marvelous Marvin Hagler qualify on this count.

Even the greatest fighters are not infallible and find some styles are more difficult to master than others.  But in their prime these three exude and execute sheer greatness to behold. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez would have had his work cut out against any one of this mighty trio.  And they against him.

Fighting the Great Carlos Monzon would have been an exacting challenge for Saul. “Shotgun” Monzon was undisputed champion of the world for seven years, with fourteen successful defenses.  Only three defeats in early career, all avenged.  Yet his towering height of six feet for this category, caused real weight problems.  More than once Carlos had to run a mile and spar three rounds to boil down to one hundred and sixty pounds. For him, it was toil and  trouble.

After halting Jose Napolis with an arc de triomphe in Paris, Carlos  couldn`t produce a single drop for a urine test. WBC Lifetime President Don Jose Sulaiman revealed that eventually and in bone dry frustration, Carlos filled the sample bottle with A glass of bubbly.  Not something that VADA would approve of today?!

At long range Carlos Monzon was absolutely lethal, accurate and devastating.  Saul`s chances would have been appreciably better at shorter close to his chest range, aided with his own efficient body attack.  But let`s not pretend it would have ever been plain sailing.  Angelo Dundee praised Carlos Monzon saying:  “Carlos Monzon is a complete fighter. He can box, he can hit, he can think and he`s game all the way.”

Rodrigo Valdes gave Carlos two real tough fights and put him down for the only time in his career in the early part of their second encounter.  Our Dear Friend Eduardo Lamazon, a countryman, who was famously and youthfully photographed alongside Carlos  almost fifty years ago, might well concur that Monzon would have been an extremely  stern test for Saul, who`s distinguished himself in a foray into the light heavy division against a tall and capable,  if fading Sergey Kovalev.

Anyone who`s seen the most ferocious round in all boxing history, will be left in no doubt about the aggression and willpower intensity of Marvin Hagler, all of which he inflicted on Tommy Hearns.  To confront Marvin in his prime and try and slug it out, was tantamount to suicide.  Also a good way to fracture your right/fight hand.

Instead of chasing Sugar Ray Leonard, round the ring round after round, if Marvin had made or even enticed Ray t come to him, perhaps he could have achieved more impactful success.  Saul who`s not the fastest of fighters would have had difficulty in achieving this amount of mobility feat.  Size wise, he and Marvin match up really nicely.  What an incredible fight this would have been.  Both blessed with iron chins.  Conditioning would have been so important because this fight could have gone all the way.  Roberto Duran was still on his feet at the end with Marvin.  It could be done.

Like Saul, Sugar Ray Robinson marched up to the middleweight division from the welters, winning the supreme prize five times.  Most of Ray`s nineteen defeats in a very long career, came towards the end of his time, and way past his prime, when he was picking up a lot more punches than lucrative paydays.

At his supreme best, Sugar Ray could KO you going forward or going backwards or sideways. He could prove to be a sidewinder!  Poetry in motion and heart synchronized harmony, his punch array was delightfully  diverse. Perhaps, that sludge hammer left hook, which poleaxed Bobo Olson, was the most impressive lance in his freelance repertoire.

Ray preferred keeping things nicely and neatly at middle range, where he could use flexibility and leverage to unsheath those Olympian thunderbolts.  He didn`t like his beautifully styled hair to be ruffled in brawny clinches.  Randolph Turpin fared very well in this respect in their first encounter, only to dispatched at the Polo Grounds, barely sixty days later. Chopped down to sagging size, after Ray became dismayed at shedding blood from a jagged cut, and upped the tempo.  He didn`t lash out.  That wasn`t his style. Rather, it  was measured pulverization.

Carmen Basilio defeated Ray in a grueling first encounter. But beating  the great one a second time around was infinitely harder.  He lost on points, after somehow continuing the battle with a left eye swollen to a plum and tightly shut.

Ray tried to snatch Joey Maxim`s light heavyweight title and was a country mile ahead on points, but was overcome by heat exhaustion in oven like New York conditions. Saul has fare better in this respect, and with great respect.

Even allowing for the exchange rate of decades, Saul will end his career, relatively much richer than any of the other big three.  Where he will stand in the illustrious pecking order, is still up for debate. The next several years will give us a better weathered “Whether vane” pointer.