Surprisingly, the final punch stat numbers from last Saturday night’s contest between WBO junior middleweight champion Liam “Beefy” Smith and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez were fairly close for their fight at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
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Although Alvarez stepped down in weight to take on Smith, fight fans still crave a clash between him and Kazakhstan’s unbeaten Gennady Golovkin, the undisputed middleweight world champion. Alvarez was much quicker and had a strong and swift left while trying to set up a barrage of left and right body blows. The two fought forehead to forehead briefly in RD 7 and it resulted in Smith’s first visit to the canvas, and a body shot sent him to his knees in the 8th and another body shot ended the fight in the ninth. The 34-year-old Golovkin is now targeting a unification fight with Billy Joe Saunders to claim the minor WBO title while everyone waits to see if he ends up in the ring with Alvarez.
Liverpudlian Smith is unbeaten in 24 contests and won the WBO belt when he defeated US fighter John Thompson in Manchester last October.
No matter what Canelo and his promoter Oscar De La Hoya want to say about the Mexican fighter not being a middleweight, he clearly is.
“Just because Smith isn’t very well known in the USA doesn’t diminish how tough he is as an opponent”.
A month ago, we offered him (GGG) three or four times as much to make the fight…
Another successful night would be phenomenal and it would be the greatest achievement by any of the fighters I have promoted over the years. “I am very disappointed”.
Smith, 23-0 with one drawn and 13 knockouts, fights outside of Britain for the first time.
“I offered Golovkin double, triple the amount to make the fight happen and he still hasn’t answered”, Canelo said after the fight.
“I fear no one”, Canelo told Kellerman. I am the best fighter right now. He criticized Canelo for fighting Amir Khan at a catchweight just above the junior middleweight division only to call up 147 pound champion Kell Brook to 160 pounds to defend his middleweight belts; this is a hypocritical position. “There were some preliminary negotiations, we have a good relationship with (Golden Boy) so we hope we can make the fight”.
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De La Hoya’s obvious mission is to keep his company’s flagship fighter from facing the risky Golovkin.
