By: Sean Crose
Now that Canelo Alvarez has once again signed up with Premiere Boxing Champions the question of who boxing’s biggest star will face when he fights this September is being asked throughout the fight world. The one match it seems many would like to see is between the iconic Canelo and WBC middleweight titlist Jermall Charlo. There’s a lot to like about such a pairing, frankly. Like Canelo, Charlo is a popular fighter. Charlo is also quite a successful fighter, boasting a record of 32 wins against no defeats. Canelo’s record of 59-2-2 needs no introduction. There’s no doubt the red haired star has faced a whose who of top competition over the years, while emerging victorious the vast majority of the time.
There are, however, questions. First off, Charlo has not fought in some time. Sure enough, the man’s last fight was over two years ago. The Houston native has, in fact, only fought five times in the past five years. No matter who the competition has been over the past half decade, Charlo’s resume has become quite thin. Not that it’s all the man’s fault. The thirty three year old has been recently recovering from a hand injury, after all.
Then there’s the matter of Canelo perhaps being in decline. Let’s get something straight right off the bat, however: A Canelo in decline is far better than ninety nine percent of most other fighters in their primes. With that being said, it would be hard for any fighter to continue on the kind of run Canelo had been on from 2018 to 2021. The man, simply put, was an absolute force at the time. To be sure, it was the kind of streak that arguably turns great fighters into all time great fighters. Yet the sun doesn’t shine 24 hours a day. Time moves on. Young talent develops. Established talent begins to slip. It’s simply one of those things.
Has Canelo really slipped, though? Sure, he lost to Dmitry Bivol a while back, but Bivol was a natural light heavyweight and Canelo was daring to be great(er) by fighting for the WBA heavyweight title. Plus, while he wasn’t able to stop John Ryder in his last match, Canelo still won convincingly. In other words, it will take more than two less than spectacular performances to truly convince the world that Canelo isn’t the fighter he once was.
The same essentially goes for charges that Charlo will be suffering from ring rust if he squares off against Canelo in September. Fans and analysts can speculate, but they can’t do much more than that. Which is one of the reasons why a Canelo-Charlo battle would be well deserving of attention. There’s simply lot of questions that would need answering.
If, of course, the fight actually comes to fruition.