Canelo Alvarez has already fought two light heavyweights. Artur Beterbiev’s assistant trainer is hoping the current super middleweight champ steps up to 175 once more — though he also recognizes the size difference between the two men might prevent that from happening.
“I would like if Canelo came back up again,” John Scully told me in a recent interview, which will be released in full this week on United Boxing, a podcast I co-host. “I’m not a guy who calls people a coward. I understand it’s a business. They’re strategic, that type of thing. He went to light heavyweight twice and he did not fight Artur. He did not choose to fight Artur. Obviously there’s a reason for that.”
Alvarez first dabbled in the 168-pound division in December 2018, blasting through Rocky Fielding. He returned to 160 thereafter, defending his lineal championship against Daniel Jacobs in May 2019. Then Canelo jumped all the way to 175 that November, challenging Sergey Kovalev for the WBO title. Canelo was narrowly ahead on two scorecards when he knocked Kovalev out in the 11th round.
Next, Canelo dropped back down to super middleweight to begin his campaign for all four world titles, taking out all three titleholders and becoming undisputed champion at the end of 2021. So in May 2022, Canelo went up to light heavyweight and challenged Dmitry Bivol for the WBA title. Bivol won a unanimous decision.
Bivol, of course, is Beterbiev’s opponent this Saturday, October 12 in the main event at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Their fight for the undisputed light heavyweight championship will air on ESPN+ in the United States.
Becoming undisputed champion would be another accomplishment for Beterbiev’s legacy. But boxing is also prizefighting. Fame and fortune are two reasons why Scully would like to see his fighter land a bout with Canelo.
“I would love for Artur to get that fight so he could make that kind of money, money that he deserves,” Scully said. “He should be much more well-known than he is. If I said I’ve got this guy […] he’s knocked out everybody he’s fought. He wants to fight everybody. He’s literally scared of no one on earth in any weight class. He would fight anyone on earth. Do you wanna watch him or do you want to watch someone else?
“Why Artur’s not a superstar, I would assume it’s because he doesn’t talk stupid. He doesn’t talk crazy. He doesn’t go on the internet and make stupid videos embarrassing himself in public so that people can talk about him. He refuses to do that. He would never demean himself to do that. Because of that, and the way the world is today, he has to suffer visibility-wise, and financially, because he won’t be the fool. Something’s wrong with that.”
But Scully also recognizes that Canelo, while just one division below at super middleweight, may be too small to take on Beterbiev.
Yes, Canelo fought Bivol, but Bivol is considered a smaller 175-pounder and has said he’d be willing and able to drop weight for a rematch with Canelo. Meanwhile, the bout with Kovalev was held with a contractual restriction in which neither man could weigh more than 185 pounds on the morning of their match.
“I would love the [Canelo] fight for Artur, but if you’re asking me to be honest, yeah, of course he’s too small,” Scully said. “He’s way smaller than Artur. People say, ‘Oh, well he beat Kovalev.’ Listen, man. People forget what he did to Kovalev. Kovalev couldn’t gain any weight after the weigh-in. He was allowed like 10 pounds, eight pounds, whatever it was. You might as well just not have him gain any weight. Just shoot him in the head with a bullet. You killed him with that stipulation.
“That’s why I say I don’t call a guy a coward or anything like that, but when you fight a guy for his title and you say, ‘I want to fight you for your title but these are the stipulations you have to follow,’ that’s like saying, ‘I think I can beat you, but I’m really not sure and I would like some assurance that I can do that.’ So if you beat the guy, like he beat Kovalev, are you really going to brag about beating the guy that you forced not to gain weight after the weigh-in? You’re not going to put that feather in your cap, are you? That’s an embarrassment. You were only able to do that because you’re in the financial driver’s seat, not because you’re the better fighter. I’m not a fan of that at all.
“If you remember the fight with GGG, GGG made Canelo look small. At the weigh-in, I remember seeing a picture of them and saying I didn’t realize Canelo was that small. That was against GGG. Imagine what he’s going to look like next to Artur. So for the money and the fame and all that stuff, I would love to see that fight, but I think the bigger fight for probably less money would be [Beterbiev vs.] Benavidez at 175.”
Benavidez, who long sought a fight with Canelo at 168, moved up to 175 in June and won a unanimous decision over former lineal light heavyweight champ Oleksandr Gvozdyk.
“It would make the most sense,” Scully saud. “I know Benavidez is a good fighter, but his style and his mentality, you couldn’t ask for more perfect for Artur. If you’re going to match strength, if people say the guy’s ‘The Monster’ and all this stuff, Artur’s the monster now. Let’s be real now. He’s not going to match strength with Artur. There’s no chance.”
David Greisman, who has covered boxing since 2004, is on Twitter @FightingWords2 and @UnitedBoxingPod. He is the co-host of the United Boxing Podcast. David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” is available on Amazon.
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