Saul “Canelo” Alvarez: The Pride of Jalisco

Santos Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez Barragán is a Mexican professional boxer, born on 18 July, 1990.

He has won multiple world championships in four weight classes from light-middleweight to light heavyweight. This includes unified titles in three of those weight classes.

Alvarez is currently a unified super middleweight world champion; having held the WBA (Super), WBC, and Ring magazine titles since 2020, and the WBO title since May 2021.

Alvarez is known as an excellent counterpuncher, being able to exploit openings in his opponents’ guards. Meanwhile, he avoids punches with head and body movement, and he is also known as a formidable body puncher.

As of June 2021, Alvarez is ranked as the world’s best active boxer, pound for pound, by BoxRec; The Ring; the Boxing Writers Association of America; the TBRB, and ESPN. 

He is also ranked as the world’s best active super-middleweight by BoxRec, The Ring, TBRB, and ESPN.

Boxing Record and Opponents List:

Canelo’s Record is filled with high-profile fights. So it was a difficult task to choose this list, to dive deep into his top 5 performances:

Top 5 Canelo Performances in His Career:

43rd Fight Vs. Austin Trout:

The fight was supposed to take place during Cinco de Mayo weekend as the co-main event to Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Robert Guerrero.

But due to a contract disagreement between Álvarez and Mayweather regarding their potential fight on 14 September 2013, Álvarez opted to headline his card instead.

In front of 39,247 fans, Álvarez successfully defended his WBC light middleweight title and won both the WBA (Regular) and vacant Ring light middleweight titles.

During the first few rounds, Trout seemed to have a good game plan.

However, Álvarez’s power took over after the third round, eventually scoring a knockdown in the seventh round to give Trout the first knockdown of his career.

The fight was closer than expected. But Alvarez still managed to dominate Trout throughout the fight with impressive head movement and shocking power.

57th Fight Vs. Callum Smith:

This was the first leg of Alvarez’s trifecta quest to become the undisputed super middleweight world champion.

Alvarez, who completed the brother’s sweep by beating Callum’s older brother Liam Smith when he was a junior middleweight in 2016, thoroughly dominated the 6-foot-3 Callum, who had a seven-inch height advantage over the 5-foot-8 Alvarez and an eight-inch reach advantage. 

Alvarez regained a world title at light-middleweight following a devastating left hook to the body in round nine.

Smith was also knocked down once in round seven and once in round eight, in a fight where Álvarez was in control from the opening bell.

Álvarez landed 157 punches from 422 thrown with a connect rate of 37%, compared to Smith landing 115 from 403 thrown, a connect rate of 29%. 

48th Fight Vs. Miguel Cotto:

Future Hall of Famer Cotto was 35 and on the downside of his career. But he was still a respected force to Alvarez, who was 25.

This was the classic case of a young lion against an old lion.

Alvarez’s star was rising, while Cotto would not fight again for two more years and ended his illustrious career in 2017.

Alvarez, feeling highly confident, stalked Cotto and towards the latter rounds cornered and punished the Puerto Rican legend.

That proved to be the difference, allowing Alvarez to become the WBC middleweight champion and let the world know they better pay attention.

56rd Fight Vs. Sergey Kovalev:

Alvarez, then 29, made history by jumping 15 pounds to become the 25th four-division champion in boxing history, dispensing Kovalev in the 11th round to win the WBO 175-pound belt.

Kovalev tried to work behind a good jab early on, but Canelo began burrowing in and landing blunt-body shots on the 36-year-old Russian.

Alvarez gradually wore Kovalev down and plowed a left hook to Kovalev’s jaw in the 11th, which staggered Kovalev.

Smelling blood, Alvarez closed in and tagged Kovalev with a right to the chin, ending it at 2:15 of the round. 

53rd Fight Vs. Gennady Golovkin II:

 Golovkin and Alvarez had been circling each other like rabid dogs since their September 2017 draw.

Many boxing pundits thought Golovkin won their first fight, which irked Alvarez. Canelo boxed more in their first encounter while Golovkin stalked, but this time, those roles were reversed. 

Canelo got off to a strong start, bruising Golovkin’s face and ribs with thudding shots.

The fight was much different from the first bout in terms of action. Álvarez, who was described by Golovkin’s team as a “runner”, altered his style and became more aggressive.

Both boxers found the use of their respective jabs from the opening round with Golovkin using his jab more as the fight went on. 

Big punches were landed by both fighters during the bout, with both Álvarez and Golovkin showing excellent chins. 

Despite the tense build-up, both boxers showed each other respect after the fight. 

Álvarez made good use of his body attack, landing 46 compared to Golovkin’s six landed. 

The action see-sawed down the street but the pride of Jalisco closed strong to capture a majority decision and cement himself as the best middleweight.