Saul Alvarez accuses Gennady Golovkin of rejecting multiple fight offers.
Advertisement
But promoter Oscar De La Hoya has steadfastly insisted he won’t make the bout until September 2017, delaying for no logical reason what would be the best fight in the sport could be made. Though understandably thankful for the career-high payday he’ll earn, Smith would’ve been well with his right to demand that Alvarez take part in VADA or USADA testing.
Canelo Picks Smith Apart / Check out results and highlights in this report at The Boxing Channel.
“I fear nobody”, he told HBO, as reported by Sky Sports.
Smith’s three brothers are all professional boxers; his younger brother Callum is also a British champion and has been earmarked as a future world champion, and his older brothers Paul and Stephen are also former British champs and world title challengers.
Smith was game, but he was no match for the bigger, faster, more powerful Alvarez, who knocked him down three times, including a brutal left hook to the body, and finished him in the ninth round to win a 154-pound world title Saturday night at AT&T Stadium. I hurt my right hand and had to use the left more often.
TESTING FAILURE: Alvarez and Smith were expected to adhere to strict testing for performance-enhancing drugs before their fight.
There was success for Smith in the fourth and the fifth when he pinned Alvarez to the ropes and clipped him with two big right hands. As the fight progressed, Canelo continued to land heavy shots, eventually dropping Smith with a hook to the head in round 7. I felt he was very strong in the beginning, so I had to put the body work and felt he would dwindle, thats how I did my job. We’ll see what weight we want to go and what weight gets us back to where we want to go.
“We’re a team. I’m not going to blame my promoter or anyone else”.
“I was slow and I had no timing”, added the 28-year-old, who suffered a bad cut in training a month out from the fight and had been unable to spar in the run-up.
There’s no reason to assume that Sadam Ali is damaged goods, but he’ll need to prove that tonight against a seemingly overmatched foe in Saul Corral.
Advertisement
The same principle applied to Floyd Mayweather Jr. before the undefeated five-division champion soundly defeated Manny Pacquiao in their long-awaited May 2015 fight in Las Vegas.
