By: Hans Themistode
Canelo Alvarez has made the walk to the boxing ring on 56 separate occasions and never has he left with his head down in defeat.
Upon taking a closer look at Alvarez’s record, many would say that statement is a mendacious one. On September 14th, in 2013, Alvarez would find himself up against the greatest boxer of his generation in Floyd Mayweather. The relatively close scorecards coupled with the ridiculous 114-114 score handed in by judge CJ Ross, doesn’t tell the full story of what happened on the night.
In short, Alvarez was dominated.
But while the rest of the world views his matchup against Mayweather as an official loss, Alvarez views it entirely differently.
“I didn’t take it as a loss,” said Alvarez to actor Eugenio Derbez. “I took it as an apprenticeship. I still didn’t have the experience to fight in those scenarios and it was a really boring fight.”
An apprenticeship has always come in handy. Many have used them in order to get their foot in the door of their dream jobs and work their way to the top. For Canelo Alvarez, that is exactly what he has done.
Since his loss to Mayweather, the Mexican born native has gone on to defeat a who’s who of stars in the boxing world including Erislandy Lara, Miguel Cotto, Gennadiy Golovkin, Daniel Jacobs and most recently Sergey Kovalev.
Those aforementioned wins have pushed the career of Alvarez to new heights. Now, he occupies a spot on every reputable pound for pound list, he’s become the 25th fighter in history to win world titles in four separate weight classes and more importantly, he signed a mammoth 11 fight 365 million dollar deal with streaming company DAZN in 2018.
Despite the large bags of cash that appear on his front door steps daily and the world wide recognition that he garners from the fans and media alike, it was the loss to Mayweather that fueled him to be in his view “the best fighter in the world.”
“It hurt a lot that night,” said Alvarez recalling his loss to Mayweather. “But the next day I said to myself that this is not going to take anything away from my goal of being the best. In boxing, I’m the second Mexican in history who managed to become the best pound for pound.”