To be honest, that is a massive step up. That list of fighters is godawful except for that version of Trout.
His stamina, footwork, head movement and ring IQ have all improved tremendously. It doesn't really matter because there is no way canelo will ever come down to any weight even remotely close to making a rematch possible. Canelo probably never will be as good as a prime Floyd but he is improving and becoming a gym rat just like Floyd. I give him props for his hard work and mentoring of up and comers like Ryan Garcia. The whole clean thing tarnishes his image but I feel he is making up for it with his hard work and dedication.
Canelo would spank even the version of Floyd that fought Conner. Canelo today is much better than the previous one that faced Floyd. Prime Floyd, of course not. But the washed up one we last saw, Canelo would KO.
I mean, sure, but... Floyd (even a past-prime but still at least 80% capacity Floyd) is a big step up from anyone, however. So that's kind of a silly and unnecessary point to make, and not the one @Forza was making. He said Canelo was "basically a prospect", which is absolutely insane rubbish. So is you calling that whole list of fighters save Trout "god-awful", tbh... Shane Mosley was god-awful in 2012? Just a few years removed from dominating Margarito? Two years from when he managed to rock Mayweather early? That version of SSM, you're really sticking with that story, that he was 'god-awful'? Ooooookay... You can say he was greatly diminished, IMO, and maybe half the pound for pound level of fighter he was in his lightweight prime, but god-awful? Ditto for Hatton, Rhodes, Gómez, Cintrón, and López. Were they cream of the crop elite? No. Were they as of then ranked contenders? Yes. The word you were looking for may have been "mediocre" (by world class standards), but god-awful is a stretch. Otherwise pretty much every champion ever has fought "god-awful" competition for a majority of their reigns.
Wrong. Decent ones were far removed from their prime/shot AND/OR out of their best division. Had they been prime and in their best division, it's different. I'm not saying he was a prospect, but he wasn't really proven against top opposition except Trout. I thought he won that clearly, yet most people saw it close. So a consensus very close fight against his only top opponent. And nah it's not a silly point to make that it was a massive step up. Any prime HOF level guy (in his best division) at that point would also have been a huge step up.
The supposed ''greatest fighter of our generation'' improved enough that a juiced prime version of himself was able to get outboxed twice by a way past prime GGG (and he did lose both of those fights or at best should be 0-1-1). /thread again
Goalposts zigging and zagging around like fireflies here. "God-awful"...suddenly now meaning "not decent and in their prime" bordering "falling short of HOF". "basically a prospect" ...suddenly now "taking a big step up in class!" Just admit that you're incredibly biased here and then bow out gracefully from the conversation, because literally nobody with a level head and dispassionate view - ie nobody except other ginger pube flossers or stark raving Mayweather haters is going to positively reinforce anything you or anybody else playing devil's advocate for the lost cause that is Forza (out not just on a limb, but ran off the damn cliff like Wile E. Coyote) has to say.
Fact #1: Floyd was 36 y.o. who didn't come late to the pro boxing. He had 17-years-lasting professional career by the time he fought Canelo. Canelo, on the other hand, was 23 y.o. with 8 years experience in professional boxing. I think it would be safe to say that Canelo was closer to his physical prime than Floyd was when Floyd schooled his ass in 2013. Fact #2. Floyd was fighting Canelo WAY above his natural weight, while Canelo was fighting him only at 1.5-2 lbs lower weight than he was fighting in all his title defences. And in the fight for the vacant WBC title Canelo weighed in at 151.5 lbs which was even lighter than he was against Floyd. Fact #3. Canelo had 43 pro fights and and 7 of them were world title fights. Hardly a green fighter or just a 'prospect'
I never said you win rounds by making a guy flinch. But the flinching certainly did happen, Floyd flinched about 35 times throughout the bout from Canelo feints. And about 20 of those flinches happened in just the first couple of rounds where Floyd was visibly nervous. So those flinches definitely happened but, no, flinches alone don't win you rounds obviously, which I never argued as I had Floyd winning. What I did say though was that flinching that many times from feints negates your ability to issue a schooling. You simply can't be flinching a record number of times from opponents feints while schooling someone. The two concepts are incongruent.
Yes, it's a little known fact that flinches are indeed scored. In fact, after very close rounds, judges tally up the number of flinches by both boxers and the one with the fewer number of flinches wins the round...
