I typically try not to use column space to pick on fellow writers, so I hope this will be regarded merely as a professional critique and in no way a personal attack.
But in reading an article on ESPN.com’s boxing page Monday morning, my brow went full furrow over an opinion I read.
As the build to Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Terence “Bud” Crawford gathers steam, Nick Parkinson wrote about various defining fights and moments for both men, assorted “bests” and “mosts” in their careers. And the article started with “best performance.”
For Crawford, the selection was his ninth-round stoppage of Errol Spence Jnr, the only fight any level-headed observer could select for that distinction. It was, by far, Crawford’s finest hour — a truly dominant victory over undoubtedly the best opponent he’d ever faced.
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For Alvarez, the selection was his 2022 win over Gennady Golovkin in their third fight.
In a word: no.
Golovkin was 40 years old, about four years past the end of his prime, and the 32-year-old Canelo was supposed to thump him and cap their trilogy with the first emphatic win either had scored over the other. Instead Alvarez produced a flat, uninspired performance, and won by just two points on two cards against an opponent who was all but retired.
It wasn’t Canelo’s best performance or defining triumph. It shouldn’t even be listed in the top 10 for those superlatives.
But, hey, opinions vary, and I’m not here to pick a fight with Parkinson. Rather, I’ll gladly thank him for inspiring a column idea. Because he got me thinking: Whereas Crawford has an obvious best win, Canelo, after a 20-year pro career featuring 67 fights in six weight classes, 27 of them “world” title fights across four divisions, doesn’t have that one indisputably great win.
Alvarez has an overabundance of very good wins, enough to eventually make him an easy first-ballot Hall of Fame selection, but he doesn’t have that singular night where he defeated a prime, elite foe cleanly and clearly without some sort of asterisk attached.
In short, Parkinson got me wondering: If it’s not his third fight with Golovkin — and clearly it is not — what the heck is Canelo’s greatest win?
Here are, in chronological order, what I consider the top five candidates, and for each I’ll state the case for and the case against.
W 12 Miguel Cotto, Nov. 21, 2015
The case for: Alvarez mixed tactical boxing and power-punching aggression effectively enough to claim the lineal middleweight championship of the world against a future Hall of Famer. On paper, that’s a phenomenal victory. Even though most observers didn’t think it was as lopsided as the stereotypically Canelo-friendly scores (117-111, 118-110 and 119-109) would have you believe, there was no dispute over who won.
The case against: Cotto was never a full-sized middleweight, as indicated by the agreement to put the title on the line at a catchweight of 155 pounds (and by the defending champ officially scaling 153.5). And the Puerto Rican was, in retrospect, well past his best. He’d recently turned 35, and he would only score one more victory in his career, over made-to-order Yoshihiro Kamegai. And Canelo didn’t stop Cotto — never came close, really. This performance was highly efficient but never spectacular, and you’d hope an all-time great fighter would have something better than that on his resume.
W 12 Gennady Golovkin, September 15, 2018
The case for: Even at age 36, this version of “GGG” was almost certainly the best fighter Alvarez ever defeated. It was a highly entertaining fight — arguably 2018’s Fight of the Year and the best action scrap of their trilogy — and Alvarez really looked like he’d gone up a level compared to their first fight, a year earlier. (Well, at least for the first nine rounds, he did … )
The case against: Can a fight in which your older opponent rallies to arguably sweep the last three rounds, leaving the scorecards in doubt once again and opinions fairly well split down the middle over who deserved to win, really be a future Hall of Famer’s showcase performance? Alvarez painted three-quarters of a masterpiece in the Golovkin rematch, then left it unfinished. And as much as Alvarez proved he was no fraud in those first two Golovkin fights, plenty of people feel he deserved to go 0-2.
KO 11 Sergey Kovalev, November 2, 2019
The case for: Alvarez moved up two divisions from where he’d previously fought to face a full-fledged light heavyweight — and not just any light heavyweight, but one of the scariest pound-for-pound punchers of the era. And Canelo came through with arguably the most impressive knockout of his career, dramatically hurting, dropping and stopping “The Krusher” in the 11th round while trailing narrowly on two scorecards.
The case against: Kovalev wasn’t way past his prime, but he was at least a couple of years over that line, at age 36 against the truly prime 29-year-old Canelo. And the Russian had been stopped twice already, including just 15 months earlier by Eleider Alvarez. He was a once-fearsome fighter who had become, if not quite fragile, at least vulnerable. It would be unfair to refer to Alvarez selecting Kovalev for his light heavyweight debut as “cherry-picking,” but it’s worth noting that, two weeks earlier, Artur Beterbiev stopped Oleksandr Gvozdyk for the lineal title.
KO 8 Billy Joe Saunders, May 8, 2021
The case for: Saunders was undefeated and more or less in his prime at age 31, and in front of a crowd of more than 73,000 fans at AT&T Stadium in Texas, Canelo broke his orbital bone with an uppercut and made the Brit’s corner surrender. And at the press conference after the fight, Alvarez added to his legacy with an all-time great, F-bomb laden dismissal of a mouthy Demetrius Andrade.
The case against: Is anyone going to remember who Saunders was a generation from now? He was a tricky southpaw who’d beaten some good fighters, like David Lemieux, Martin Murray, Andy Lee and Chris Eubank Jnr, but everyone knew he was taking a massive leap in quality against Canelo. And even though Alvarez got the TKO, the ending was an anticlimax to a fight where neither man ever fully got going.
KO 11 Caleb Plant, November 6, 2021
The case for: One fight after stopping Saunders, Canelo checked off most of the same boxes against Plant. Undefeated opponent? Check. Slick, clever style? Check. A big underdog against Alvarez? Check. Whereas Saunders never fought again, Plant has continued on but has gone 2-2, so, it’s hard to say who had the better post-Canelo path. But Alvarez deserves credit for stopping them both, especially for the body shots that cemented Plant’s demise.
The case against: Again, a lot of Saunders redux, as Plant will be remembered as a good, solid super middleweight who was a little out of his depth against the elite fighters of his time. There’s nothing to knock in Alvarez’s performance, but … could a man who served as the face of boxing for roughly a decade really retire with his most exceptional win coming against a relative also-ran like Plant?
There are plenty of other fights to consider on Alvarez’s record, but they each come with a big “yeah, but.”
Erislandy Lara? Highly debatable decision. Austin Trout? Moderately debatable decision. Amir Khan? Way too small. Shane Mosley? Way too old. James Kirkland? Way too limited.
So we’re left with a counterintuitive but very real scenario for September 13.
Crawford, the smaller man and the underdog, can defeat Alvarez and possibly have it not go down as his greatest win because the Spence evisceration was so perfect.
And Alvarez, the bigger man and the favorite, has an outside chance at doing something in the ring at Allegiant Stadium that ends up looked back on as his victory that stands out above all his others — because the competition for that honor is all so flawed.
