Are people being overly harsh on Canelo since his loss to Bivol?

Hearns spent the last 15 years of his career fighting at LtHeavy and above and got stopped twice at middle and once at 147,

I wonder if anyone ever called him a "weight bully", or is that only reserved for today's fighters?

 

Good of you to bring this up because I was just thinking about how Lara would do against Hearns. The difference between Hearns vs Lara and Hearns vs Canelo is that against Lara, Hearns would be more willing to apply sustained pressure to Lara because he doesn't have to worry about getting caught and hurt with a big shot than he would have against Canelo.

Against Canelo, Hearns would have to be much more careful than he would against Lara. I'm not convinced Hearns would be able to stop Lara, but that's a much easier fight for Hearns because Lara isn't a big puncher. Hearns like most fighters would have a much easier time against Lara because the threat of getting caught and dropped isn't there.

LOL so you can't punch unless you KO someone cold with one shot? That's a high bar to apply to any fighter. He iced Kovalev with one shot. He devastated Beefy Smith with a body shot.

The fact that Canelo is even able to compete at LHW let alone win titles is pretty impressive. Hearns never fought anybody at LHW like Bivol, you know full well that Bivol would easily outbox LHW Hearns probably by a much wider score than he did against Canelo.

Benavidez is heavy handed, every punch he throws is hard, but he only throws jabs and straights, he doesn't have the punch technique of Canelo. When Canelo loads up, Canelo's straight right hand has more power than Benavidez's straight right. Benavidez's jab is harder, Benavidez doesn't really have to load up. Benavidez is a tough customer, and a more dangerous puncher than Bivol, but he's easier to outbox than Bivol.

No possible way? This is boxing, theater of the unexpected. There was no possible way that a 3 year retired SRL (with only 1 fight in 5 years) would even stand a chance against Hagler and look what happened.

That may be, I'm not claiming Canelo would run through all of Hagler's MW opponents. But I still think you're underrating MW Canelo. Look how easily Canelo schooled Jacobs. How do you think Hagler or Hagler's MW opponents do against GGG? Would Hagler's MW oppoents have been able to beat GGG like Canelo did? I highly doubt it. Would Hagler himself have been able to beat GGG? You really have to ask yourself those questions.

All of a sudden? Canelo wasn't poised to beat Mayweather for a number of reasons. Of course Canelo wasn't at his best against Mayweather due to the catchweight, but he still gave him a hell of a fight. I scored rounds 2, 3 4 and 10 for Canelo. In addition, round 6 and 12 were about even. Floyd really struggled with a drained Canelo. A full strength Canelo would have been too much for Floydyboy.

Legendary fighters? GGG was seen as a legendary Middlewieght Champion who was seen as unbeatable before Canelo had his way with him over 3 fights.

How many legendary wins does Hagler have? He beat Hearns and Duran, legends for sure, but both of those fighters had already been beaten. Neither of them were undefeated or seen by many as unbeatable when Hagler beat them, like GGG was.

Duran had not only QUIT (No Más) against SRL but he had lost 2 decisions the year before he fought Hagler. Was Duran ever the same fighter he was after he beat SRL the first time? Haglers wins over Hearns and Duran were legendary, but were they as tough to beat at that time than GGG? Were they seen as unbeatable or unstoppable as GGG was? Hardly. The blueprint on how to beat those guys had already been laid out, in Duran's case several times by the time he fought Hagler.