Canelo has only faced TOP ELITE FIGHTERS

No, not only top opposition. But he has fought better fighters than most active fighters.

 

Well, since his career didn’t start till 2005, I’d say this conversation can stop right here.

 

There’s a decent amount of top fighters on his resume and he is an exceptional fighter himself.
If you’d go trough the “elite of elite” names on his resume though, some were avoided until they’re old and beatable, some were picked just because they’re shot AF, some he actually lost to.
Then there’s an argument that he had no business being at 154 in the first place.
Then the failed PED tests.
I’m struggling to think of 1 clear win to call his best or his signature win. Something not tainted.

 

Most of whom were the wrong side of 35 or thereabouts.. an age that he himself has stated he wants to be retired before he gets to..

 

I do think he needs one clear cut win against a prime, elite opponent at their best weight. I sincerely believed he beat GGG in the second fight but, upon rewatch, I had serious doubts. I can't remember the last time I changed my mind so drastically.

His performance against Jacobs was looking like the one. He was thoroughly schooling him in the early rounds but the fight evened up a lot and became close.

 

I could see how Jacobs is his best win but even there he had a re-hydration clause in so he would have the same problem Golovkin had.

 

Well, I can go back and check the annual ratings to when he stepped into the elite end of the pool. In 2010 Kermit Cintron was rated the #1 jr. Middleweight. Alvarez fought him at the end of 2011 giving him some claim to being top dog there, but Cotto was still rated above him in 2011. Old shell of himself ten years past his best Mosley was rated #10 at welterweight when he moved up to fight Canelo in 2012. Mayweather and Trout are rated #1 and #3 to Alvarez' #2 and he fought them both in 2013. That's commendable. Lara is rated right behind him and he fights him in 2014. Cotto was erroneously rated #1 at middleweight in 2014 so Alvarez fought him in 2015 for that phony title.

Then things get a little iffy. You could say up to this point that Canelo cleaned house and fought every meaningful junior middleweight as well as an old welterweight for five years. It's at this point, 2016, that he decides to fight the #9 rated junior middleweight Liam Smith and the #3 rated welterweight Amir Khan to delay the fight with Golovkin another year further aging the rightful champ. He takes a money fight with the unrated Chavez Jr and then finally faces Golovkin in late 2017 and late 2018. Now, Rocky Fielding doesn't show up in the 2017 or 2018 ratings at Super Middleweight so I'm going to assume he wasn't elite there. But beating him was enough to have Ring rate Canelo at #4. At least he fought Golovkin that year. In 2019 he fought #2 rated Jacobs, the next best fighter at middleweight after Golovkin and he fought #5 rated Kovalev at light heavyweight. Jacobs is still a top middleweight and Kovalev was an elite light heavyweight not too long ago.

If you wanted to, you could honestly make the case that aside from that year and a half where he fought Khan, Smith, and Chavez Alavrez fought a top ranked fighter in his weight class every year. He'd fight a scrub and then fight his #1 ranked challenger every year. That's not the same as fighting "only top elite fighters" but it's not too far from it. Aside from 2012 and 2016 he had one meaningful fight every year. He's not dealing off the bottom of the deck fighting the seventh or eighth fighter in his division to retain a paper title like most "champs" do. Could he do more? Yes. He could fight a fellow champ or two top contenders each year, instead of one, but he's already doing more than almost everybody else.

 

A lot of people like Canelo for his bravery, and in a sense I can understand this.
Name another middleweight who has walked through the fire of Khan's lightning flurries and lived to tell the tale? Basically every other MW is terrified of calling out Khan and dragging him up to MW. You could say the whole MW division basically ducked Khan for Khan's whole career. Canelo rose to that challenge like nobody else. He was behind on the cards and dug deep to land a clean punch. And don't forget, that although Khan claimed Canelo weighed in the 180s for that fight, Canelo actually wasn't a proper MW yet, he was still developing his MW-ness, and that only makes the win that much braver.

 

Regardless of contested decisions(GGG), etc. he has shown a rare willingness to test himself against reasonable competition. Most of today's boxers aren't willing to risk anything.

 

Roids are a true confidence builder.

 

To keep his habit of fighting the top dog of the division or best contender he hasn't faced before alive, he should either face Callum Smith at super middleweight or Demetrius Andrade at middleweight next year. Considering how Callum Smith looked against John Ryder, it'll probably be Smith.

 

Has he though, only risk he’s taken is Kovalev and that’s kind of laughable. I mean prime Krusher would’ve been a suicide mission for any MW but this version? C’mon, it was just the name and memories.

Actually, another risk would be Maywether fight but that’s a money grab + guaranteed no damage taken so extremely low risk, extremely high reward.

 

Facing Mayweather and Golovkin twice were big risks. He didn't win any of them but they took balls to try. Personally, I didn't think he had a chance in hell against Kovalev, but assuming that wasn't rigged it took courage too.