Fans overwhelmingly believe Canelo Alvarez’s poor performance against John Ryder last Saturday signals that the superstar is washed up and should forget about his insane plans to rematch WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol at 175 in September.
Canelo (59-2-2, 39 KOs) made what should have been an easy fight against a slow ham & egger hard work and would have lost if his 34-year-old opponent had any power or speed.
Robert Diaz, the matchmaker for Golden Boy Promotions, believes all the 32-year-old Canelo needs is a 1-2 year layoff, and he’ll be a brand new fighter, but that seems like wishful thinking.
While long rests worked for fighters like Floyd Mayweather Jr and Sugar Ray Leonard, it’s likely to have the opposite effect on Canelo, slowing him down more and making him easier to hit than he’s been in his last three fights.
At this stage in Canelo’s career, he seems to be too focused on golf, dreaming of making it on the PGA tour with pros that have been playing the game since they were kids.
Canelo doesn’t seem interested in boxing enough to improve his game and give himself a chance against fighters like David Benavidez and Bivol.
At the same time, Canelo has accumulated enormous generational wealth with a fortune estimated to be well over $200 million and still rapidly growing.
It’s fair to say that if the Mexican star can prolong his career for around ten years, he’ll be the sport’s first billionaire, which is hard to believe because there are better fighters than him who are struggling financially.
“He turned pro at 15. He’s 32, 33. The sparring, the number of fights, takes its toll on the body,” said Golden Boy matchmaker Robert Diaz to Fight Hub TV on his theory on why Canelo Alvarez has looked so poor in his last three fights, including his bout last Saturday night against John ‘The Gorilla’ Ryder.
“As much as you feel good, you feel healthy; you feel strong, the body says, ‘yeah, I need a break.’ So, personally, it would be beautiful if he took a couple of years off and then came back, but just to rest the body. But knowing him, he’s going to keep wanting the challenges,” Diaz said of Canelo.
“The body rests, and then at the same time, you create more anticipation because the fans want to see you back. So that wouldn’t be a bad thing,” Robert concluded about Alvarez.
