Why do RING magazine still recognize Alvarez as champion ?

Ok--Lets see where we might agree.
I would have rather watched Khan vs Mayweather instead of Berto. I think it would have been an interesting fight.
But just because Khan is an interesting fight for The best WW in the world, does not make him a good challenger for the MW championship.

At least you admit it was a money fight. That's it.

What bothers me about the Khan fight is Canelo KNEW GGG was his mandatory after Cotto. He KNEW the mandatory would be enforced. They then were able to get all sides to agree to an interim fight and Canelo gets in with a WW?? I'm sorry dude. Canelo at that time had the juice to get anyone in the ring. He could have chosen a top 154 pound guy and go to 160.

Funny--above you say Canelo takes on all comers, but after beating Khan, he dumps the belt instead of facing GGG--which all sides agreed to. So I guess that ends the "all comers" theory.

I honestly had hopes for Canelo. I really hoped he would be the guy to take us out of this A side non sense and just make great fights--get out of this 2 times a year BS and holding belts hostage like Mayweather did.

We've had this discussion several times. Just my opinion--at that time Canelo (or Oscar) did not want to risk Canelo at 160. They wanted to try and drain GGG to the made up CW of 155. And I really dont care thats the weight he won it at. He won the MW championship of the world KNOWING his manadatory was expecting to fight at 160 and WOULD hold out for a purse bid to enforce 160. Instead of taking on "all comers", he ditched his belt and went back to 154 to fight the very lightly regarded Smith.

I give Canelo the exact same credit for beating Khan that I give GGG for fighting Brooks. ZERO. In GGG's case it was a last minute replacement. Canelo had the clout to try and fight anyone for his first MW championship. He chose a WW.

He is currently suspened for PEDs. Whether it was on purpose or not makes no difference. It's on Canelo to work on him and his team to repair his rep. He could be doing that by enrolling NOW in a very strict VADA program. He is not. Why do you think that is? Are you going to defend that as well? Dont you think it makes him look MORE guilty by not enrolling now?

Anyway--you are normally reasonable as well--and you avoid the name calling I mostly see here so I appreciate that. However unless something changes with this guy, I most likley will never root for him again and most likley will never buy another of his PPvs.

Late--

 

You asked why the dislike for Canelo.

He picked a WW when he was given an I terim fight to defend the MW championship. He then dumped that championship instead of facing his mandatory.

And why the name calling. I don't believe I have ever resorted to such tactics over a difference of opinion with you or Shadow.

 

"Begged" lol you sure about that? I don't think Canelo ever said anything about not being a true Middleweight, or needing to acclimate to 160, I'm pretty sure that was taken from a quote by DLH.

I think it was more about not forcing Canelo to move up to 160 as he had been fighting at 154 / 155 for a very long time . Whether he fought a guy from a lower weight class or whether he fight a contenter at 160 really didn't matter as much as you're trying to make it seem. It was just the fact that he was being asked to move up and take on the best fighter in the division right after having won the title. That's a big ask for a newly crowned champion to be asked to move up in weight and fight the best in the division. When Canelo took the Cotto fight, he didn't take that fight to "become a Middleweight". He was making the biggest $$ fight available. Same with the Khan fight. That said, I understand the criticisms about fighters defending titles at catchweights. But Canelo didn't start that trend at MW, Cotto did and what Cotto did during his "MW" reign is much more worthy of criticism than what Canelo did. (draining natural MWs at catchweights is worth then fighting fighters coming up in weight at catchweights) And most importantly, he did end up fighting Golovkin the next year so it all worked out.

You're simply making up this story that Golovkin agreed to let Canelo fight "an iron chinned, come forward fighter". You're creating your own expectation. Golovkin agreed to let Canelo have an interim fight, they had no say in who Canelo defended that title against. That's where you're off-base.

 

Holy hypocrisy Batman. You're willing to let Vargas slide for his "one time PED bust" arguing he was "duped by his newly brought on nutritionist" but with Canelo you're holding his feet to the fire on what was very likely due to meat contamination?

Surely you can see how ridiculous it sounds that you are so upset with Canelo yet you still consider yourself a fan of Vargas letting his situation slide, believing Vargas excuse because you're a fan. smh lol.

 

First of all, I told you to apologize for your earlier ridiculous post, young man
And no, I’m not off base. You’re so far off base you’ve left the stadium.
No, he had not been fighting at 154/155 for a long time, he’d been fighting at 155. Yes, what Cotto did wasn’t cool and he took a lot of flak for it. But Cotto was at the tail end of career that had seen him in with the best and in the process had paid some hellacious dues. Plus, nobody considered him a middleweight. He saw his chance in an relatively small, old Martinez and took it.
When Clenelo won the belt he knew that Golovkin was his immediate mandatory. And it was Cornholio who said he wasn’t a true middleweight and that his body would tell him when he was ready to fight a whopping 4lbs heavier. And that played a part in his asking for an interim fight. And he didn’t fight GGG the next year, it was two years! Clenelo fought 3 times before fighting his mandatory and had dumped a belt in the process...after claiming Mexicans don’t **** around.
Now repent of your lies and tomfoolery, shadow.

 

You put a lot of information into your post and I appreciate you explaining yourself. I think I might answer your post piece by piece over time because there's a lot to respond to. For now let me just respond to this part : Floyd as the best WW in the world also won a World Title at SWW (154-lbs) and still held those belts when the Khan fight was being discussed. (by the way THAT was holding belts hostage, not what Canelo was doing, Canelo did the opposite of holding a belt hostage in vacating it)

Another factor is that Khan is a naturally big Welterweight. Floyd who was considered the best WW in the world I agree, was also at that time considered the best 154-lber in the World as was able to hold two titles there (for over 2 years without ever fighting above 147 which is a severe bending of the rules)

You're getting stuck on Canelo vs Khan not being appropriate for the MW Championship. I agree it would have been more appropriate at 154 for a 154-lb title but again you have to consider what happened to Canelo's 154-lb belt after he fought Floyd. Floyd was holding that belt hostage after going back down to 147 after defeating Canelo. Canelo had no ability to regain that title or fight Khan for a 154-lb title. That's why he was essentially forced into fighting Cotto in the first place.

A lot of fans when discussing this always try to ignore Floyd's role in all of this and what it forced Canelo to do. (to move up to "MW" to take on Cotto) Even Cotto vs Martinez, that happened largely because Cotto had no route to regain his 154-lb title since Floyd wasn't intererested in a rematch. So Cotto made the biggest $$ fight in moving up to fight Martinez. (do you see a trend here, prizefighting typically involves making the biggest $$ fights possible regardless of weight class)

So it's not like Floyd (the best WW) was only a welterweight. He was also a unified 154-lb Champ. Yes Canelo is naturally bigger than Floyd, but Khan is very capable (like Floyd) of fighting at 147 or 154. Khan's last fight (his first fight since fighting Canelo) was contracted at a 150 lb catchweight and Khan weighed in squarely at 150 lbs. So it's not like Khan was really moving up all that much to meet Canelo at JMW + 1 lb.

 

o . . . k . . .

Fair point about Cotto taking hellacious dues, but in fairness nobody considered Canelo a MW either until he won that title.

You're confusing two parts of the quote. Canelo may have said he didn't consider himself a true MW. (which was accurate because at that point he'd never fought even close to the MW limit) The part that you're trying to tie to Canelo is the part about taking the interim specifically for the purpose of acclimating himself to 160 specifically by taking on a natural 160-er. I'm not sure that DLH ever said that he was planning on Canelo fighting a natural 160-er contender as his first voluntary defense. It sounds to me like you're just making that up because you're trying to fit what DLH and / or Canelo said into your expectation.

Golovkin had zero say in who Canelo had to fight for his voluntary defense as you erroneously claimed. Further as far as I can tell, DLH or Canelo never said anything about specifically fighting an estabnlished MW at 160. DLH may have said something about wanting time to acclimate Canelo to 160. (I know he said something like his body wasn't ready for 160 yet, which would be contrary to moving him up to 160 for his first defense against an established Middleweight as you are claiming)

It seems like you're getting upset because I'm exposing so much of what you're saying, but if you don't want to get called out for making stuff up, then don't make stuff up lmao.

You're telling me I need to repent on "my" lies. What lies are those? It's clearly you who are making stuff up and I'm exposing them !

And here's another one. You just said "he didn’t fight GGG the next year, it was two years". Wrong brainaic. Khan announced that he was fighting Canelo on Feb 2, 2016. So the decision to fight Khan occurred in early 2016. The next year, Canelo agreed to fight Golovkin.

 

Oy vey, son you’re very wearisome. You strain a gnat while swallowing a camel. Look, at least we can both agree that Clenelo has always lived and died with his weight playing a part, right? Whether or not it was his first title fight against Matthew Hatton when he failed to make the contracted weight or bringing Khan up or bringing JCC Jr down. And we both agree that he twice tested positive for a banned PED that is used for burning fat, increasing endurance and his positive test came shortly after he was posting selfies of his particularly ripped physique but just prior to starting his training camp before the most highly anticipated rematch / fight of the year, right? And we can both agree that his promoter said he would subject himself to VADA testing regularly to help prove he’s a clean fighter but has since said that he will undergo random drug tests only after he has a signed contract from GGG and that he has just been dropped out of the wbc rankings for refusing to enroll in their clean fighter program, right?
So let’s just continue to agree on the above facts that we both acknowledge and accept and leave the petty squabbling to lesser men than ourselves, ok?

 

Who cares where Khan has fought SINCE Canelo? That was 2 years ago. How many fights did he have at WW before Canelo? 2? 3 Maybe?

There is nothing you can say or try to explain that will ever convince me that Khan was anything but a big name for Canelo to draw PPV. Thats it. And Im actually ok with that. What I'm not OK with is making it out like Khan was some sort of legit challenger to the MW title. He wasnt then, and he never will be.

And it's that kind of punk move that completely turned me off Canelo. The fans wanted Canelo/GGG. Canelo gave us Khan, Smith, JCJr, THEN finally GGG. And my gut feeling is Canelo wont be fighting GGG come Sept. He will find a low risk, high reward for a "come back" fight.

Before you declare that Khan is "quite capable" of fighting at 154, how about he actually do it first with some success against some top fighters. By my count he has fought exactly 1 top fighter above 147 and got stretched.

Then after Khan we have Smith--let me guess you defend that fight as well? 154 title, something something something. So Canelo just had a light touch with Khan, then cherry picks a very, very lightly regarded 154 pounder. Instead of fighting his mandatory. Whom he had agreed to fight after his one interim defense.

We probably have differentt opinions on that---mine is simple--Oscar wanted to low ball GGG with something like 90/10 and 155. GGG rightfully said "no", I'm the mandatory. This will go to purse bid and be at 160 with the normal purse bid split (75/25). Canelo drops the title and is chased out of 160.

Here's the thing--I can be critical of GGG when I feel it is deserved. I have done so here several times. I have never seen you be fairly critical of Canelo.

 

Did Clenelo fight the NSAC? Did he present any evidence to them where he could have bought this so called meat?

Nope.

Vargas messed up, no question, but his incident isn’t the same as Clenelos. In Vargas’ case, the truth came out. Clenelos never did and now he’s not even being randomly tested to prove he’s clean, which I find astonishing.

Like I said, apples to oranges.

 

You could say the same thing about Kell Brook fighting Golovkin. Both Brook and Khan were fighting out of their weight classes, and weren't given much of a chance to challenge for a MW Title. So I'm not really disputing that. But Khan possesses the kind of speed and outboxing ability that none of the full Middleweights could match. (with the exception of perhaps a BJS) On the other hand, Khan's punch resistance is more of a liability than other MW contenders.

The proof is really in the pudding, had Canelo not hit Khan with that outstanding punch that put Khan's lights out, Khan may very well have been able to box like that for 7 more rounds and escape with decision win. (not just vs Canelo but vs Golovkin or any other MW) That's the thing with Khan, you know this, Khan could get sparked out by anyone at any time, but if he manages to stay out of danger, he has an ability to win rounds vs Anybody. So was he a legit challenger for the MW Title? Based on what he was doing in those first 5 rounds, I think the answer to that question is YES. I mean **** Khan was more of a challenger to the MW Title than Dominick Wade was! (I think you'd agree with that right)

Don't see how it's a punk move but I can understand your reaction to hearing that opponent and bailing on Canelo from that point on as a result. Just the image of Khan being KO'd causes a lot of fans to roll their eyes at the thought of Khan.

As far as your gut feeling that Canelo won't be fighting GGG, well it's clear that Canelo and De La Hoya want the fight in September, if it doesn't happen it's certainly not because of GBP. They are waiting for Triple G to come to the table and make this rematch happen.

Well yeah that 1 top fighter above 147 was Canelo Alvarez, a Top P4P fighter with devastating power. Lo Greco wasn't a top fighter by any means but Khan sparked him out early in the first round. Lo Greco had only been stopped once before which was by Errol Spence Jr, Lo Greco had gone the distance with Shawn Porter. It's obvious that Khan has the kind of power and speed to stop 154-ers. Khan has a big frame for a welterweight, and just because he hasn't been in there with top 154-ers doesn't mean he's not capable of fighting at 154. It seems pretty clear that vs Lo Greco he proved that to an extent in a 150-lb catchweight fight. Just looking at how effective Khan was in the first 5 rounds vs Canelo also shows how capable he is north of 147.

You're glossing over some important details, like the fact that the WBC gave him a 15-day timetable to agree to terms to fight Golovkin following the Khan bout. So that's true, he did agree to fight Golovkin after fighting Khan but he never got the opportunity because he was given a 15-day window and essentially an ultimatum which he was unable to agree to. (if I recall he had a court date over a contract issue with his former promoter following the Khan fight which he had to deal with)

I was OK with the Smith fight because 1) It's a fight that I wanted to see for some time as I thought it would be a good matchup stylistically 2) He had already vacated the MW Title.

So of course I wanted to see him fight Golovkin after Khan like you did. But then after he vacated the title, there was no point in him fighting another MW, and if he wasn't going to to fight another MW or Golovkin, then the best fight at 154 was a fight with Smith. I mean after fighting Floyd, Canelo was unable to get himself into a title fight at 154 so Smith was the best opportunity at getting a World Title at 154. (which may not have been high on your priority list, but was important to Canelo to capture a world title at 154 before campaigning permanently at Middleweight) I looked at the fight with Smith as the last chance for him to fight Liam Smith because the pressure to fight Golovkin was mounting. In his mind, Canelo always considered himself a 154-lb Champion and since dropping the decision to Floyd he was only in non-title fights so he wanted that one last hurrah at 154, so in his mind he could move up to MW as a Champion. Again I don't blame you for not seeing how important that was to Canelo, but that match with Smith was important to Canelo so I didn't have a problem with it at all, knowing full well that after that he would likely be fighting Middleweights from then on.

So I didn't want him to fight Smith *more* than I wanted him to fight Golovkin OK, but Smith was the fight that made the most sense after he was forced to vacate the MW title. (I never subscribed to the idea that he needed to fight other MW's before fighting Golovkin, the fact that he was Lineal Champion I thought puts him at the front of the line for a fight vs Golovkin whenever he wanted it)

 

He did present evidence as to where he ingested the meat. From what I heard from the WBC President who was privy to that information, Canelo didn't claim to have ingested contaminated meat that was prepared in his home. He provided the NSAC with a list of meals that he suspected was how he ingested the contaminated meat. One of those venues was when he threw out the first pitch at the Carribean World Series Baseball Game with Bill Clinton. He apparently had a meal there at the baseball stadium which may have contained contaminated meat.

The reason he didn't fight the NSAC was because had he fought them, it would have meant a prolonged process with the risk of being suspended for longer than 6 months. By cooperating with them and agreeing to a 6 month suspension he was guaranteed to not miss his next available fight date. If he fought the NSAC, there was a risk of a 1 year suspension since Nevada has a no tolerance policy for testing positive for any banned substance meat contamination or not. So why fight the NSAC and risk a 1 year suspension and not being able to fight until 2019 when you can cooperate and serve a suspension of only 6 months allowing you to fight in Sept? It's really a no brainer.

No the incident isn't the same. In Vargas' case, the "excuse" came out and you chose to believe it as the truth because you're a fan lol. In Canelo's case, the "truth" came out but you chose to not believe it and called it an excuse.

The difference is that Vargas messed up, whereas in Canelo's case you don't know he messed up because of the meat contamination possibility!

 

Vargas owned up to it like a man, where Clenelo and DLH are sounding like liars. Vargas had no idea. When he was asked to submit a urine test post fight, he went out of his way to do so, I remember reading about it. Does that sound like someone who knew what was laying inside his system? He got duped by an ******* and it’s easy to see that.

Clenelo looks like a man now compared to a child just a couple years ago. He was juicing at some point. Fighters around the sport have said the same sentiments.

Clenelo was recently dropped from the WBC ratings for not signing up for their clean testing program. That doesn’t sound sketchy at all.

Didn’t you have Clenelo winning against GGG? That’s all I need to know about you.

 

I'm at work so I can't full reply.

I like back and forth with you. You seem like a decent enough guy that I completely disagree with.

Khan lasted all of 5 rds. Any of the top MWs would spark him. You know as well as I do that eventually an elite fighter will find a way to touch a guy.

 

One thing I need to correct you on...I am not sure of the time frame Canelo was given to negotiate with GGG. I thought it was 3 weeks..you say 15 days. Doesn't matter. Whatever the time frame is, that time frame wasn't the deadline or be stripped. That was the deadline OR it would go to purse bid. Which would mean the purse split would be manadated along with the 160 weight restriction.

The fact that Canelo would rather give up his title than have it go to purse bid speaks volumes to me. He woukdnt be able to dictate weight and try to drain GGG and he would not be able to low ball him on the split given the 90/10 Oscar had been quotes at.

15 days, or 3 weeks is plenty of time to negotiate a deal or at least have theframework in place on split. Canelo deserved the Lions share. No doubt. But 90/10 or whatever low ball offer they had in mind was nonsense. If you are GGG you are of course going to let it go to purse bid to avoid any sort of low ball offer and to get any CW non sense of the table.