Canelo has been shot since Bivol

I agree with most of this. Nice to see you didn't jump on the Crawford bandwagon like the other Spence fan boys who all said Crawford was overrated for years but have now changed their tune.

 

I think it's both what OP states and the fact that Canelo has always been somewhat overrated H2H. He's probably one of the rare few fighters who I think has overachieved accomplishment wise in comparison to his H2H ability.

 

He will be in the HOF. I dont get why so many Mexicans hate him, him being, like it or not, one of them. Also he was the most dominant Mexican boxer of his era.

 

And he should have at least one "L" vs GGG at his peak. No sympathy at all. He fought a good fight and conducted himself with class, but he lost to the better man, finally. Close, but clear.

And now some people are trying to make the case that he's not that big and Crawford was the bigger guy and yeah...no. Canelo is a bowling ball of a fighter. Dense. You could see his musculature when the camera was behind him. His back was like wider than he is tall lol.

I'd watch a rematch. Why not?

 

I agree. The second GGG fight was Canelo at his absolute best. By the time the Plant fight came around, that's when I first started to think he might be declining. Either that or Plant was better than I originally thought. Then he looks bad against Bivol. I attributed it to the weight. Didn't look great in the third GGG fight but Canelo mentioned a hand injury. When he didn't look great against Ryder, that's when I was convinced he was declining.

 

Canelo was 31 at the time with 1 loss in 2013 to Floyd who was undefeated. Bivol was undefeated. Before the Crawford fight Canelo hadn't lost since. Bivols lost once and avenged.

If we label every champion shot the first time they lose their belt whats the point of all this?

Today Canelos probably a little past his prime. When he fought Bivol? Hard to say he wasn't in his prime.

 

Yes but the same is true in the reverse - Best Canelo beats Crawford. Anotherwords, 2017-2021 Canelo beats this verison of Crawford, probably hurts him badly. This is largely a case of Canelo having so much respect for Crawford, that he wasn't motivated to hurt him like he was GGG or BJS. This was a good steady performance from Caenlo, but you could also say he was slightly outclassed by Bud, in that Bud knew what he needed to do to win the pivotal rounds and land the shots that you would remember. Seeing Canelo get hit flush by the big shots that Bud landed leave an impression in the judges, that would as was the case here enough to offset the spaces of control that Canelo had through many portions of the fight. Canelo's performance was arguably good enough to have retained his title and get his signature win, but he didn't do one key thing that he usually does when he wins - he didn't land the absolute best eye catching shots of the fight. In the past he's done that even while being outlanded by mostly jabs, while having a large body punching advantage. Crawford fought a very smart fight but I did not come out of it thinking that Crawford is better than Canelo or even in a P4P sense.

 

Does Canelo need a rematch now to right this wrong? What would a rematch win do against a now presumably P4P #1 Bud for Canelo? Canelo could make history of his own by beating Bud now. Would it make sense for either Bud or Canelo now to fight someone else or to go into a rematch?

 

I think it buries the idea he was one of the best SMW's of all time. He never beat the top contender, Benavidez, pretty much all the opponents he beat in the division were mediocre with Plant being the best one a good B level fighter, and he lost to a 38 year old welter first time in the division. You can't talk about him the same breath as the best of that division regardless if he was undisputed. Same as Haney at 135.