How do we still not know how good Canelo is?

Um, we do know how good he is. Not sure what you're talking about.

Canelo is the first ever undisputed SMW champion. Even if the division was weak, you don't do something like that without being really good.

 

I think it's his lack of a long stay at a division, and he's only ever clearly beaten weak opposition - in comparison to other great 160-175lbs fighters.

Guys like Saunders, Smith, Plant, Old Kovalev, Old Cotto, etc; just aren't that great. Lara and Trout are only marginally better, and he looked awful against them. GGG is far and away his best opponent outside of Mayweather, and he failed to deliver the sort of performance someone of his "greatness" should have.

However, I think it's pretty clear that at 154 and 160, we know his ceiling. Someone like Hearns, Leonard or Benitez is too much for him there. A fight with McCallum could be very painful. We know he's on par with an aging GGG at 160. I personally don't think he's really improved much since the second GGG, he's just been in with far worse opponents.

There's also a massive amount of misconceptions about Canelo, too. He was obviously not as good at 154 as he was at 160 and above - and he's absolutely huge for 160 and even big for 168. He's just short, but he's built like a bowling ball and actually weighed more than Kovalev did on fight night. The guy's huge. He isn't a Mickey Walker type who's ascended through the weight classes, he's just gradually moved to the weight he's supposed to have been at - 168.

 

Also doesn't hurt when you are the face of boxing and it's biggest cash cow. You get liberties not afforded to others by an ABC, because $$$.

 

Give me a break. The performances vs GGG were legendary. Canelo delivered. It's unfathomable how anyone could not be impressed by what he did vs GGG. Canelo inflicted far more damage on GGG than SRL inflicted on Hagler, for example. Canelo showcased skills that he had not shown before, like the ability to use footwork in the first match, combining a sweet science defensive approach with a high powered counter punching offense, an effective and well executed strategy against GGG. What was particularly impressive about it was his versatility, showing the ability to fight GGG to a draw with one strategy, then take a completely different approach in the rematch throwing caution to the wind and succeed that way.

 

Geez.... SRL and Hagler means jack **** FFS. You try to make these pointless comparisons all too often. That's the noob in you talking.

 

Hopefully bivol brings out the best in canelo

 

Good fighters make Canelo look like a 1 dimensional ginger midget.

Hopefully Bivol has enough in his toolchest to beat this hypejob.

 

Plant fight was so obvious.

 

McCallum would school Canelo. He'd make him look European level.

Yep. I thought he looked his best against GGG 1

 

It's just ridiculous, it's a shame so many people are suckered in. I literally face-palm watching some of his recent fights and seeing people think it's legit.

Hopefully someone exposes him at some point. Boxing is not really a sport at this point especially at this level, it's just a game of fooling as many people as possible

 

We know how good Canelo is...

• He's a great boxer with explosive hands and an underrated defensive ability
• He's been thoroughly tested - although he has been tested time and time again, he's one of the only fighters to fail multiple drug tests and have it swept under the rug. Unsurprisingly, he still retains the notion of being one of the best active fighters
• The most pulling power - Not just with contract negotiations. He paid his way out of an assault charge against a 108 lb fighter (Ulises Solis had his jaw broken) & was originally under investigation for manslaughter (Javier Jauregui died following a brutal sparring session with Canelo). Jauregui's family originally pushed hard to bring Canelo to justice. Not long after they changed their tune ($$$) and stated in public that it wasn't Canelo's fault - and the manslaughter charges were dropped.
• He's P4P the most gifted active fighter - no one competes when it comes to scorecards. Mayweather, Trout, Lara, GGG1, GGG2

What more does he need to prove?

 

George was trying to downplay Canelo's performances against GGG. I brought up SRL Hagler and that Canelo inflicted far more damage on GGG than SRL did on Hagler to help us keep things in perspective.

 

Who said I wasn't impressed by Canelo in those fights? But no, Canelo did not deliver. Canelo has the best resume in boxing, is a legitimate, three weight lineal champ, is 11-1-1 against fighters ranked in his weight class, and is arguably the pound-for-pound number one. He should be compared to the best middleweights and light heavyweights ever, and in this scope, he absolutely did not deliver. A razor thin win, and a draw with a man almost ten years older than him who himself isn't - and never was - in that truly elite, top ten middleweight bracket is not a legendary performance. Taking long stretches of rounds off and losing the entirety of the middle rounds in the first fight?

Legendary performance, my arse. And that's not even mentioning the blatant steroid cheating.

By the way, Leonard overcame a five year retirement, a damaged retina, and a significant size disadvantage against the greatest middleweight of all-time. And not only that, but he landed near enough the same amount of punches in twelve rounds that Canelo landed in twenty four - against a far better defensive fighter than GGG. Just because a welterweight who isn't known for power didn't inflict much damage on the toughest middleweight ever doesn't stop it from being a legendary performance. Canelo inflicted more damage on Alfonso Gomez than Hearns did on Virgil Hill. Does that make it a better performance? No, absolutely not.

 

Back when he fought GGG he wasn't all that. He wasn't P4P #1, and he wasn't expected to beat GGG. What you're doing is holding him to his accolades and accomplishments as of today and using that to argue that his performances against GGG 4-5 years ago weren't up to his current level of dominance. He became P4P #1 due to the performances over GGG, and the win over GGG was instrumental in propelling him to where he is now.

You can't have it both ways, either GGG was all that or he wasn't. GGG fans like to have their cake and eat it to. Pick a lane instead of always needing to have the best of both worlds.

You can downplay what Canelo did to GGG all you want, but they were legendary performances and they are very comparable to the greatest Middleweight performances of all time. You don't just nonchalantly give a ho hum performance and draw or beat a warrior like GGG. Canelo rose to the occassion and dethroned the boogeyman of the division, and did it in spectacular fashion. If you can't see that or recognize that, that's your problem.

There was no steroid cheating. Clenbuterol isn't a steroid, and it was blatant and obvious meat contamination. Only dectractors who refuse to see the obvious make him out to be a PED cheat.

I think a lot of people would disagree with you about Hagler being a "far better" defensive fighter than GGG. Hagler vs Hearns was a firefight where defense was not on display from either fighter. GGG never had a fight like that where he forgot about his defense. The idea that Hagler was the "toughest MW ever", debatable. Marvin was tough as nails but so is GGG. Hagler struggled vs Mugabi before fighting Ray, GGG struggled with Jacobs before fighting Canelo.

Obviously Ray was well past his prime off a long layoff, when he came back to fight Hagler, but the point still stands. Ray's lightning fast combinations while scoring and winning him rounds, weren't as effective or as impactful as the well placed counter blows that Canelo landed on GGG in the first fight. Canelo inflicted more damage on GGG than SRL inflicted on Hagler and that's the point. Not taking anything away from what Ray accomplished that night, but Canelo proved that fight 1 vs GGG wasn't a fluke by rematching him a year later and beating him at his own game. It was a far more comprehensive win for Canelo than Ray over Hagler. Many said that Hagler gave away the early rounds by taking Ray too lightly then being surprised. That wasn't the case with GGG, it was a more comprehensive performance by Canelo in the way in which he dispatched of GGG, than Ray Leonard's impressive give the circumstances but also more flash than substance victory over Hagler.