Saul Alvarez, Canelo to those who prefer shorter names or nicknames for boxers, had no problem against 40 year old Shane Mosley, retaining his WBC Light Middleweight belt but more importantly won his first big fight as a co-headliner on PPV, taking another step towards the top of the boxing world.
In all fairness, it wasn’t supposed to be a close fight. Shane Mosley isn’t ‘Sugar’; He hasn’t been for a long time. He began his career 38-0, but has since gone 8-8-1, winning his last fight in January 2009. Since then he has been beaten by Mayweather and Pacquiao, finishing with Sergio Mora in a draw. Nothing impressive, as you wouldn’t expect from a 40 year old fighter. Former champion, yes, but he has been on the decline before Alvarez fought his first professional fight.
Alvarez, the youngest world champion in boxing today (two months before his 22nd birthday) is now 40-0-1, winning 29 of his fights by knockout. He brutally damaged Mosley who once again, proved he no longer belongs to anything near the elite tier in the sport. He didn’t just hang around waiting to get hit like in the Pacquiao fight, be he didn’t do much better. Not getting knocked out or knocked down was the best Mosley could take from the fight, besides the generous payday.
There was no doubt as to the winner of the fight, from the scorecards and from the Compubox numbers. Alvarez won the unanimous decision with a 119-109, 119-109, 118-110 from the guys with the scorecards. Alvarez hit Mosley worst than anyone has ever hit him, connecting with 348 of his 673 punches thrown, 52%. Mosley landed only 183 of his 745 thrown shots, 25%.
Again, Mosley did come to fight unlike his previous May performance last year, but even when he did connect, there’s no power left in his tired hands. There wasn’t even much left to defend himself from Canelo’s onslaught, backed by the cheers of the backing crowd on Cinco De Mayo.
This was a great experience. I felt really good and I want to thank Shane for giving me this experience. He’s a great fighter, a true veteran. I tried to knock him out. He took a lot of punches, but it didn’t work. When I was coming up in boxing, I used to watch a lot of videos to pick up stuff from him, to learn from him To now be fighting him is a dream come true.
Mosley’s future isn’t exactly clear. It does like retirement isn’t too far down the road. When you have a son who’s the age of the guy who just beat you, that rings some bells. Getting in the ring and being beat up isn’t too nice at his advanced age for the sport. He might continue, and his name might still sound lucrative on some promotional cards, but Mosley has no business fighting with guys at this level.
For Alvarez, it was just another step in Golden Boy Promotions’ plans to make him the biggest Mexican fighter since Julio Cesar Chavez, hopefully exceeding even him. Alvarez is young and already a superstar in Mexico. Now it’s time to become a superstar in Vegas.
There’s been plenty of talk about pitting him against Floyd Mayweather in the near future, in what would become a unification bout in the Light Middleweight division. Mayweather is heading to jail, but assuming Pacquiao is off the table, it might be the best idea for Floyd for his next fight. For Alvarez? Despite the promising prospect of facing Mayweather, in all aspects (especially financially), it still might be too soon for him to take on the best boxer in the world.