Let's be real, Canelo is an excellent fighter. Great offensive skill set, great counter puncher, holds a good high guard and has a granite chin. All those traits have gotten him to the level he is now. However the failed test and sketchy score cards have clouded peoples perception of that. He lost to GGG on an uneven playing field, but beat some good fighters on a level playing field.
Objectively-speaking, he's very, very good. There are very few flaws to his game, and his major flaw - slow feet - he works with by using elite upper body movement to negate this disadvantage. Great boxing IQ, granite chin and stays very calm in the heat of battle. Credit where it's due, he's an awesome talent.
Alls I know is that GGG was supposed to be too much man for him, according to the 'experts' ... and Canelo twice made him look ordinary and uninspired.
It's hard to judge considering nobody has the advantages he has. But we can judge him versus GGG. Anyone with half a brain could see a middle-age GGG comfortably beat a prime and likely PED-ed Canelo in the first fight. Only a tiny percentage actually believed otherwise. Those people are worms. People with no capacity to reason pretend that because Canelo didn't get dropped or KO'd, he somehow won the event and Golovkin failed. To demonstrate what worms these people must be, Malignaggi has a bias towards 'slick' fighters and even he saw an obvious GGG victory, and this was before the drug suspension. That first fight tells us if a post prime Golovkin could beat Canelo, a prime Golovkin would beat him more convincingly. This means when the variables are removed Canelo is inferior to Golovkin, no matter how much success he might have against a post prime GGG. He could KO GGG five times from here on out and he'd still be inferior.
Good enough to generate one thread per minute in this forum without logging in or typing a single letter. @DavidCopperfield
He is a very good basic fighter with a granite chin and unlimited flow of steroids. He is arguably worse then old GGG, a lot worse then old Mayweather, a little better then Jacobs, similar level to Lara and Trout.
He's a very, very good fighter overall, great combination puncher, great defensively, excellent upper body movement, phenomenal chin. He has glaring deficiencies when combating a specific style however. He can be outboxed and out maneuvered. He can be outjabbed. His stamina is "lacking". He's not some type of perfect fighter that is phenomenal against every stylistic matchup. (there are fighters out there that are, he ain't one of em), this is my issue. He's also had some very dubious favorable decisions, I think nearly every high level fighter has at least had one, but he's had no less than 5 during the latter part of his career. That's crazy. Overall, he's a high level operator, but now there is becoming a "mythology" around him, which I feel isn't completely deserved.
He’s very good and going to be hard to beat over the next few years. Great chin, improved stamina, excellent defense and ring IQ, strong guy, great counter puncher. Canelo is a solid all around fighter. Combine this with the fact that he’s not going to lose decisions no matter what happens in the fight, his license to use steroids and PEDs freely and his popularity which allows him to pick opponents at will and secretly require them to adhere to weight clauses or weight classes of his choosing, he’s about as unbeatable as it gets in modern boxing. I could never support a guy this corrupt and arrogant but understand the appeal. One way or another, his arm is going to be raised after every fight for the next few years at least. You have to knock him out to win and the deck is stacked so heavily in his favor, I don’t see it happening. Can’t lose a decision, smart and skilled enough to avoid a KO is a dangerous combination.
You mentioned almost everything except his stamina. I think he got one of the worst gas tank in modern boxing, i can only think of Matt Korobov who can compete with him in terms of shitty work rate. But he is one of the best today, its true.
To be fair, GGG is for me one of the greatest middleweights of all time, he had lost a step clearly, that's why Oscar made the fight. Canelo could work with the slowed up version of G, not beat him but be competitive. I think Canelo will prove his worth now, even if he loses on the way, he wants to ditch Oscar for the look he has with fans, even his own countrymen slag him. I'm expecting a couple of wins off him that shuts everyone up, hes good enough and I think hes angry or will extend himself to get that respect. Im seeing by the time he finishes, everyone will look back and see Oscar was the problem
I agree that he is an excellent fighter, but would add that his record is no way as good as it looks on paper. Too many stacked fights and fights with asterisks next to them for that. There's 4-5 fights that, if the other guy had had HIS judges, he'd have lost, that he was given the W in. That would make his record look far more pedestrian.
In 10 years casuals, who didnt watch his fights, gonna look at his resume on boxrec and think he is the GOAT, hehe
