Canelo Alvarez has abandoned his plans on attempting to avenge his loss to Dmitry Bivol, and instead, he’s looking at facing inactive middleweight Jermall Charlo or WBC cruiserweight champion Badou Jack.
It’s widely believed that Canelo will fight Badou because he’s middle-aged, an easy mark, and the Mexican star will get loads of money from the Saudis fighting him.
The younger boxing fans don’t know who Badou is because his best years were way back in 2016 to 2017, and that’s a long time ago.
Accompanied by his manager/trainer Eddy Reynoso, Canelo met with Al Haymon of PBC last week to discuss the possibility of a fight against Charlo (32-0, 22 KOs).
It’s unclear how serious Canelo is in fighting Jermall because he’s currently in negotiations with Skills Challenge Entertainment for a fight against the 39-year-old Badou in Saudi Arabia.
That’s not only an easier fight for Canelo but also one that should pay a great deal more. It’s no secret that Canelo wants to become a five division world champion, and facing Badou, who is arguably the weakest of the four champions at cruiserweight, gives the Mexican star an excellent chance of doing that.
Jermall, 33, hasn’t fought in two years, but he’s back in training, ready to resume his career. This is a good time for Canelo to fight him because he’s likely to be rusty and beatable.
Jermall hasn’t fought since the life & death battle against Juan Macias Montiel in 2021, and he looked terrible in that fight. Two years of inactivity likely hasn’t made Jermaall any better.
It might be a little late for Canelo to finally be showing interest in fighting Jermall because this is a match-up that the boxing world has talked about since 2018.
Jermall has wanted the fight, but Canelo has been cool towards it, choosing not to face him and even using the WBC Franchise tag to avoid the fight. Perhaps the two years of inactivity for Jermall along with the way he’s slurring his words now, may have given Canelo the confidence to finally face him.
Alvarez and his trainer/manager Eddy Reynoso met with PBC founder Al Haymon last week in the Cleveland area, where a fall fight with WBC middleweight titleholder Jermall Charlo was discussed,” said Mike Coppinger to ESPN about another candidate for Canelo Alvarez’s next fight in September.
The boxing world won’t be happy with Canelo continuing to swerve his WBC mandatory David Benavidez because that’s the fight that people are interested in.
Canelo recently said that David Benavidez and Caleb Plant should fight each other to build themselves up; now that Benavidez has done that and come out victorious, he’s still not getting a fight against Canelo.
Fans need to forget Canelo taking risky fights from this point on with his career. The way that Canelo was pummeled by Dmitry Bivol last year was a bad experience for him, and he’s likely going to avoid the dangerous guys like Benavidez, and David Morrell and focus on easier targets that he knows he can beat.