Rocky Fielding is facing a stern examination on Dec. 15, when he stands across the ring from Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and aims to do what only one man before him has managed: defeat the Mexican icon.
A wealth of talented operators including champions, prospects, undefeated stars and sporting royalty have attempted to combat Canelo’s size and accuracy, but with the exception of Floyd Mayweather Jr. and, to a certain extent, Gennady Golovkin, they’ve all failed to outfight the contemporary face of boxing.
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One man who produced a spirited effort is Fielding’s former amateur club teammate, Liam Smith, who lost via a sickening stoppage in September 2016. Speaking to Sporting News the week before Alvarez's rematch with Golovkin earlier this year, Smith had this to say:
"His variety is hard to live with. You have to be prepared for attacks from all angles because he throws every shot in the book and he throws them all with spite, too. His jab is good, his uppercut is good, he tries to make you miss and come back with counters. I know he had a lot of variety before I fought him because he was someone I had watched as a fan before it became a possibility he could become an opponent and it’s that variety that’s his biggest strength."
Alvarez emphatically took Smith’s WBO belt at 154 pounds. Another champion he managed to dethrone was New Mexico's Austin Trout when he took Trout's WBA super lightweight title in 2013. Trout managed some success against Alvarez but lost on all three judges’ scorecards.
Speaking to Fighthype.com three years later, Trout was respectful about what he encountered in Canelo.
"He’s smart, he has good boxing savvy and he has explosive speed and power," Trout said. "He makes his adjustments, but he’s a good fighter and I can’t take nothing from him. He's exciting for the sport."
With Alvarez now occupying the most coveted spots in boxing courtesy of his record-breaking deal with streaming giant DAZN, it's increasingly difficult to cast thoughts back just a few years ago when he was an undercard attraction still fighting his way to the top of a brutal business.
As a supporting act to Mayweather's tricky outing against Miguel Cotto, Alvarez dominated a faded Shane Mosley, once a pound-for-pound superstar himself, over 12 rounds. The Southern California native went on to enjoy numerous gym sessions with his conqueror, and he has spoken candidly about Alvarez's strengths.
"Canelo is really good," Mosley told Fighthype earlier this year. "He's got a good defense, he has got good movement. When he lost to Floyd, he was really young and even when he fought me he was only 20 years old. He’s kind of like Fernando [Vargas] having these type of fights really early, but Floyd is not a puncher the way [Felix] Trinidad was, so he learned from that fight and he got better, which is good."
Canelo’s only setback, which occurred in September 2015, came at the hands of Mayweather, who was too experienced and skilled for the brief attacks Alvarez launched toward him. In the second fight of a monumental deal with Showtime, Canelo's size and youth were seen as ideal attributes to trouble an aging Mayweather, but the Michigan-born stylist, a great of the game, knew too much in every area to even be troubled by the man who would carry the sport once Floyd retired. With occasional talk of a rematch sometimes mentioned within the fight community, the rivalry is not dead yet, but Mayweather has been both complimentary and insulting when discussing his past victim.
In the immediate aftermath of his fight with Alvarez, Mayweather took to the podium inside the MGM Grand and delivered a grand appraisal.
"First of all, I want to commend this young, strong champion," said "Money" as he looked down to his left at a visibly distressed Alvarez, who had just endured the first defeat of his professional life. "He will carry the torch. Tonight, I want to say that experience played a major key. Canelo has everything that it takes to go on and be a legend in this sport, but tonight was just my night. Canelo is a thinker, I’m thinker, this was chess."
Initial pleasantries eventually turned to scorn, though, as Canelo became boxing’s biggest draw following the retirement of Mayweather. When the multiweight champion returned to face UFC star Connor McGregor weeks before Alvarez shared the spotlight with Golovkin, mild digs were handed out by each camp as they vied for those all-important PPV numbers.
On Oct. 18, out of nowhere, Mayweather went to his Instagram account to unleash a further attack on Alvarez with a "Throwback Thursday" hashtag underneath a photograph of Floyd landing a right uppercut on Canelo.
"It didn’t matter if Canelo ate his PED steak or not this night, this was by far the easiest night of my career," Mayweather wrote. "Connor McQuiter was a way better fighter than Canelo’s cheating ass and I beat the brakes off him too. It takes me 36 mins or less to make $300 million plus. It literally takes me one night and one fight to make what you might make in five years and 11 fights. So really, who’s still winning? You do the math."
With Mayweather consistently showing fighters respect and disdain in equal measure ever since his glorious reign at super featherweight, one must decide if his most recent outburst concerning Alvarez is his true opinion or his way of staying relevant in a sport that is trying to reinvent itself since he walked out the door last summer.
One fighter who has never been in the business of badmouthing his foes is Alfonso Gomez. Mexican like Canelo, Gomez took on his countryman in September 2011 on the same show where Mayweather knocked out a defenseless Victor Ortiz. Gomez performed admirably during the fight's early going despite suffering a first-round flooring, but after receiving sustained punishment in the sixth session, the bout was called off, albeit slightly prematurely, by third man Wayne Hedgpeth.
Gomez reflected on the fight when speaking to EsNewsReporting.com in 2012: "I would’ve adjusted some things that I was doing wrong as now I see that he was hunting me and waiting for an opportunity that did come. I was winning rounds and proving a point that maybe he wasn't ready or that I'm not that bad, one or the other. I stepped into the ring and he wobbled me a bit and they stopped it. He hits pretty hard, decent fighter and he’s very good. It didn’t happen for me that night so I just got to keep moving forward."
With professional opinions of Alavrez ranging from mediocre to excellent, depending what version of Mayweather to believe, the most damning assessment of the man aiming to become a three-weight beltholder on Saturday night comes from Kermit Cintron.
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In 2011, the hardened Puerto Rican was extinguished in five rounds by Alvarez, but when speaking to Boxingscene in April this year, Cintron’s evaluation of the man who wiped him out appeared slightly far-fetched.
"I honestly didn’t think too much of him when I fought him," Cintron said. "He was a lot faster than I expected but wasn't as strong as people make him out to be. I rate Sergio Martinez over him skill-wise."
The consensus from former foes of Canelo is that he is very much the world-class fighter who has adorned high-class promotions for a number of years. Fielding does not need to search far within the fight game to understand the man he’s facing at Madison Square Garden in just a few days, and once all has settled down in the showdown’s aftermath, the ambitious Englander will be another contributor to the varied war stories that star Alvarez.