Still seemingly bitter about his loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr from eight years ago in 2013, Canelo Alvarez firmly believes that he’d defeat the 44-year-old star if they were to fight today.
With the improvements that the younger and now much bigger 30-year-old WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Canelo (55-1-2, 37 KOs) has made over the years with trainer Eddy Reynoso, he believes he’d beat Mayweather (50-0, 27 KOs) now.
Unfortunately, Mayweather retired from boxing four long years ago in 2017 after his mismatch with UFC fighter Conor McGregor and expressed no interest in coming out of retirement to fight active fighters, particularly ones in their prime.
Mayweather has found a new method of bringing in easy money by fighting exhibition bouts against famous people, and in doing so, he’s created an avenue for other retired boxers to make good cash returning to the ring.
“Without a doubt, I would beat him, it would be a very different fight. I am a more mature fighter, it would be a totally different fight,” Canelo said to Univision about his belief that he’d beat the 44-year-old Mayweather now.
Given that Mayweather hasn’t had a serious fight against a prime boxer since his win over an injured Manny Pacquiao in 2015, it’s safe to say now that Canelo would beat him if they fought now.
What Canelo is failing to realize is that boxing fans wouldn’t be impressed with him beating Mayweather now. At this point, it would be wretched to see Canelo reduced to trying to avenge his loss against Mayweather with him having been out of the ring for so many years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hws-4eDDchw&t=193s
Where’s the gain for Canelo, other than financially, in taking on the former six-division world champion Floyd Jr now?
Eight years ago, Mayweather defeated Canelo by a 12 round majority decision on September 14th, 2013 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. The judges’ scores: 117-111, 116-112 for Mayweather, and 114-114.
Interestingly the judge that scored the fight even at 114-114, CJ Ross, took withering criticism from the boxing public for her score, as the fight was a one-sided affair from start to finish with Mayweather schooling an inept Canelo, making him look like a pupil inside the ring.
Although much has been said about Canelo having learned from that loss to Floyd Jr, we didn’t see the improvements immediately, as was out-boxed by Cuban talent Erislandy Lara a year later, but was given a highly controversial 12 round split decision victory.
Lara did the same things that Mayweather did to Canelo, but he lacked the popularity and found himself on the receiving end of a questionable decision that many boxing fans to this day still view as a robbery.
“I have more experience, I learned a lot,” Canelo continued about the change in his game since his lss to Mayweather.
“I said that this was not going to stop me [losing to Mayweather], that I would be the best in the world at some point; it hurt a lot because I wanted to win,” said Canelo.
Well, Canelo has been successful in the aftermath of his loss to Mayweather. Still, he’s had four controversial fights that he arguably could have lost to Lara, Gennadiy Golovkin, and Miguel Cotto. Many boxing fans also believe Canelo should have lost to Austin Trout.
What we can say is Canelo has improved since his loss to Mayweather, but he’s NOT improved enough to beat the best fighters he’s faced conclusively. What we do know is Canelo is popular and very hard to beat by a decision, particularly when fighting in Las Vegas, Nevada.
But you would have to agree with Canelo that he can finally beat Mayweather now, but there would no real victory. Canelo had his chance in 2013 to beat a still relatively prime Mayweather, and he failed.
Now, Canelo has to live with his defeat and not let his bitterness get the best of him.
