Tag Archives: Liam Smith

Canelo Alvarez Becomes Mexico’s First Unified Champion in Super Middleweight History

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Canelo Alvarez is making history…

The 30-year-old Mexican professional boxer, the sport’s biggest superstar, put on a dominant display on Saturday night to end the 2020 major fight slate, cruising to a unanimous decision win over previously undefeated champion Callum Smith and winning the WBA, WBC and The Ring magazine super middleweight titles.

Canelo Alvarez

The scorecards read 119-109, 119-109 and 117-111, all for Alvarez.

In the process, Alvarez became the first unified champion from Mexico in super middleweight history.

In front of 15,000 fans (20% capacity) at the San Antonio Alamodome, Alvarez (54-1-2, 36 KOs) stalked Smith (27-1, 19 KOs), punishing him with an array of consistent jabs, uppercuts and hooks for 12 rounds.

“I’m the best in the world,” Alvarez said on the DAZN broadcast via an interpreter. “In the first round, I tried to see what he brings, the skills or whatever, but like you can see, I showed what I am.”

By the later rounds, the intrigue of the fight shifted from who would win to whether Smith would survive Alvarez’s devastating blows and go the distance.

The 6-foot-3 Smith had a 7-inch height advantage and an 8-inch reach advantage over the 5-foot-8 Alvarez. But it didn’t matter, as Alvarez was the big bully, eliminating the distance that Smith prefers and consistently pounding punches off the British boxer’s head and body.

“He was the better fighter tonight,” Smith said. “He’s smart. He’s clever. He sets you little traps and keeps you thinking. Before you know it, he’s closing the ground. He’s a good fighter, but I’m just a little disappointed with myself. His jab was really good. It surprised me a little bit. His defense was really good.”

Alvarez has now defeated two Smith brothers — knocking out older brother Liam Smith as a junior middleweight in 2016 and defeating Callum Smith on Saturday.

Alvarez — universally considered one of the top two pound-for-pound boxers in the world, boxing’s best-selling fighter, and already a four-division champion — now has won The Ring magazine title in three different weight classes.

He landed 43% of his punches and 57% of his power punches on Saturday, per CompuBox, in a complete performance in which his defense also shined. Smith landed only 18% of his punches and 24% of his power punches.

It was Alvarez’s first fight since parting ways with Golden Boy Promotions and DAZN after contractual disputes, and he returned to the ring for the first time in 13 months as his own promoter with little in-ring rust.

“I’M BACK!” he wrote as part of a Twitter post early Sunday morning.

https://twitter.com/Canelo/status/1340544290003533829?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1340544290003533829%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.espn.com%2F

Alvarez & Cesar Chavez Jr. to Face Off in Las Vegas over Cinco de Mayo Weekend

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Canelo Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. are headed to Sin City…

The all-Mexican mega showdown between the rival boxers on May 6, Cinco de Mayo weekend, will take place at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, according to Golden Boy Promotions.

Canelo Alvarez & Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.

Golden Boy said it had also been in talks to potentially put on the fight at AT&T Stadium, the home of the Dallas Cowboys, in Arlington, Texas.

Alvarez knocked out Liam Smith at the arena in September, on Mexican Independence Day weekend, to win a junior middleweight world title before a crowd of 51,240, the biggest of the three fight cards to take place at the stadium.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was interested in hosting the Alvarez-Chavez fight, a much bigger event than Alvarez-Smith, but Golden Boy said it got a sweeter deal from MGM Resorts International and AEG, which owns T-Mobile Arena.

“When my team and I talked about where to hold what will be the biggest fight of the first half of the year, we kept coming back to Las Vegas,” Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya said. “The biggest fights of the last 30-plus years have taken place in Vegas, and it is a natural home for this enormous event.”

On Cinco de Mayo weekend in 2016, Alvarez (48-1-1, 34 KOs), 26, opened the T-Mobile Arena for boxing with a thunderous sixth-round knockout of Amir Khan to retain the middleweight world title before a crowd of 16,540. Alvarez then vacated his middleweight championship and returned to his more natural junior middleweight division to face Smith.

“I love fighting in Las Vegas, where the most important fights have historically been, and I’m very happy to be back at the T-Mobile Arena for this huge event on Cinco de Mayo weekend,” Alvarez said. “I know that people from all over the world, America, obviously Mexico and everywhere else will attend to witness a great show.”

Chavez (50-2-1, 32 KOs), 30, has not boxed in Las Vegas since Sept. 15, 2012, when he scored a 12th-round knockdown of Sergio Martinez on Mexican Independence Day weekend but was otherwise dominated in a one-sided decision loss that cost him his middleweight world title belt.

“I’m happy to return to Las Vegas, where I’ve had many important battles in the ring,” Chavez said. “Las Vegas is the home of boxing.”

The 12-round non-title fight will be contested at a catchweight of 164.5 pounds and headline an HBO PPV card (9 p.m. ET). Alvarez is moving up about 10 pounds for the fight, and Chavez, who has been fighting at super middleweight/light heavyweight, will come down about 6 pounds from the weight he has generally been fighting at.

Alvarez Defeats Liam Smith to Claim WBO Light-Middleweight Title

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Canelo Alvarez has a new title under his belt…

The 26-year-old Mexican professional boxer knocked out Liam Smith in the ninth round Saturday night after dropping him in the previous two rounds, winning the WBO light middleweight championship before a record crowd of 51,240 at AT&T Stadium.

Canelo Alvarez

The victory kept Alvarez (48-1-1) on pace for a showdown with undefeated, unified middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin that is expected be held by September 2017, according to Alvarez promoter Oscar De La Hoya.

“I fear no man,” Alvarez said in the AT&T ring through an interpreter. “I am the best fighter in this. About a month ago, we offered GGG three or four times as much to make the fight.”

Golovkin is a 34-year-old Kazakhstan native based in Santa Monica, California, who has said he wants the fight as soon as possible. Signals have been mixed from the Alvarez camp whether he was waiting to better negotiating terms and location as well as wanting to spend more time training at a higher weight.

Alvarez, ranked as the world’s best boxer, pound for pound, by BoxRec, had won a middleweight title but vacated it for this shot at the junior middleweight championship, sparking criticism that he was avoiding the hard-punching Golovkin.

“We are ready for him and he doesn’t want to accept,” Alvarez said. “As I said, we are a team and I fear no one. I fight the best and I want to fight the best. I am the best at this sport and Viva La Mexico!”

Negotiations toward a fight this fall fell apart, and some were surprised Alvarez said Golovkin had been offered a fight.

The large crowd for the Mexican Independence weekend bout will keep the home of the Dallas Cowboys in the running for the prospective match with Golovkin. The attendance record had been set in a Manny Pacquiao fight.

Alvarez was loudly cheered throughout the fight as well as every time he was shown on the screen during undercard bouts. Before the knockout in the ninth, his blistering pace of right uppercuts continued to take a toll and he opened a cut above Smith’s right eye.

Smith (23-1-1) wasn’t the pushover some expected when Alvarez announced the fight instead of meeting Golovkin. An inch taller and a little stronger, Smith had never been knocked down. He was willing take some hits while trying to land his knockout right. Alvarez was much quicker and had a strong and swift left while trying to set up a barrage of left and right body blows.

“If I would have waited a little longer and gotten more experience I would have been able to fight a guy like that better,” Smith said. “I am very disappointed. Canelo was too good. I needed better timing, my timing was off.”