Undisputed super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez weighed 167.5 pounds while his opponent John Ryder scaled in at 168 lbs on Friday at the weigh-in for Saturday night’s headliner live on DAZN pay-per-view in Estadio Akron in Guadalajara, Mexico. The price tag for the event is $59.99 on PPV.
In the co-feature weighs, WBC flyweight champion Julio Cesar Martinez weighed in at 112 lbs, and challenger Ronal Batista came in at 112 lbs.
Canelo (58-2-2, 39 KOs) will be fighting in front of a home crowd against his WBO mandatory Ryder (32-5, 18 KOs), who has the potential to cause an upset.
Ryder can win if Canelo gasses out early as he did in his last two fights. Whether the judges will give him the decision is another matter.
Undercard weigh-in results
Julio Cesar Martinez 112 vs. Ronal Batista 112
Steve Spark 140 vs. Gabriel Gollaz 139
Oleksandr Gvozdyk 174.8 vs. Ricards Bolotniks 174.8
“We’ve seen John Ryder walking around the hotel all week long, as cool as can be, as calm as can be. He looks completely unphased by the magnitude of this moment, and in a way, that’s understandable,” said Chris Mannix to DAZN Boxing.
“John Ryder has been a road warrior for much of his career. He goes to the backyard of Callum Smith; he goes to the backyard of Rocky Fielding, but how is he going to hold up in that stadium with 50,000 fans going against him?” said Mannix.
“What I like about him is the quiet confidence. So it’s not that bravado, ‘I’m going to come to conquer the world.’ Quiet bravado, quiet confidence, destiny is on his side. We’re going to find out. That’s the only thing I can tell you,” said Sergio Mora.
“Is Canelo starting to show signs of a slow decline and slippage? This is a guy that has been a pro for 18 years. Do you think he was as good as he was against Geennadiy Golovkin II?” said Ade Oladipo.
“Why wouldn’t he? He has more experience. Just because he lost to a bigger guy,” said Akin Reyes about Canelo, who lost to Dmitry Bivol last year and lost was beaten by 40-year-old Gennadiy Golovkin last time out.
“Age can play a part; hunger can play a part,” said Ade.”He has more money in the bank than you can ever wish for. Are the hunger and desire still there to say that I want to be pound-for-pound #1?”
“When you have that type of fighter, hunger doesn’t ever go away,” said Akin. “To your point. He has all the money he can use. He like fancy things. You see the toys that he buys. The Lamborghinis and the houses.
“So to go into that ring, he’s already rich at this point. You see what he’s doing to Callum Smith. It’s not about money at this point. It’s about legacy, and he says it all the time. I don’t think anybody in boxing has a resume like he dos with his last six opponents,” said Akin.
“If you look at his resume and it’s incredible. At the start against Callum Smith at 168 pounds. You fast forward to 2021 against Caleb Plant when he was undisputed,” said Ade. “The only blemish is Dmitry Bivol, who I think is the best at 175.”
“Do you understand that four of those guys were undefeated, and the other guy that wasn’t undefeated, he beat him. That’s it,” said Barak Bess. “That was Gennadiy Golovkin.”
“A guy that is 5’8″. He’s smaller than the other 168-pounders, beating the undefeated champions. He has enough to go into the Hall of Fame two times.”
“Let’s talk about the opponents after. We haven’t seen Billy Joe Saunders. We talk about Caleb Plant. He recently lost against David Benavidez,” said Akin. “He [Canelo] puts damage on fighters, and they’re never the same, in my opinion, after fighting.”
“John Ryder’s resume isn’t too bad as well,” said Ade.
