I have been a big critic of Canelo Alvarez's career for years now... I understand now that he is one of the best fighters of his generation and I recognize him as such... but seeing what Canelo did at the age of Jaron Ennis, Ortiz and Garcia... I have realized that he was at least one step above the current young world champions... Canelo at Jaron's age was already fighting with GGG... who was a puncher with very efficient boxing... one of two things: either he is more talented than these guys or he always had the drive to perfect himself as a boxer.
People forget how long he’s been around… not to mention fighting the likes of Erislandy Lara (and several other good fighters) years before the GGG fight… Canelo has earned his way….
He's one of the more well-rounded boxers in the last 20 years, for whatever criticisms I'd have of him if compared to other ring greats. And he is a ring great, even though I was never a fan exactly, and was even maybe biased against him being included in that group.
Canelo is a special talent he's incredibly skillful and has one of the best defenses of all time for an aggressive fighter. Yes he's had some controversial decisions go his way and the scorecards in some of his fights are atrocious but it takes nothing away from his overall skill set. And if I'm being honest I think the 1st Golovkin fight was the only fight in Canelo's career that I would consider a bad decision. Whilst the other fights were close I can see Canelo edging them based on his harder punches. But I can understand why people get frustrated because he does get the benefit of the doubt in every close fight and there has been some awful scorecards as I said earlier 118-110 Golovkin 1, 117-111 Lara, 115-113 Bivol.
I think it's pretty unanimous that barring some questionable decisions in his career, Canelo is a very gifted boxer puncher with some of the best short combination bursts and upper body movement of the past 3 decades. Against a come to him style where he can tee off, he looks borderline ATG. Against very athletic guys that are elite movers though............................