Canelo Alvarez has one of the most impressive trophy cabinets of any professional fighter.
Through his career, Alvarez has accumulated a lot of belts, and some strange gifts for good measure.
His next outing on September 13 will see him put his undisputed super middleweight championship on the line against Terence Crawford in a true super fight.
Alvarez may have turned the Crawford fight down at first but we are now just days away from a matchup that fans have been dreaming about for years.
However, giving people exactly what they want hasn’t always been a consistent theme of the Mexican star’s career.
Photo by Steve Marcus/Getty ImagesFans slammed Canelo Alvarez being named as the WBC’s first ‘Franchise Champion’
Like most legendary boxers, Canelo Alvarez has some controversial aspects in his career that go hand-in-hand with his greatest successes.
The most notable one being the drug tests that Alvarez has failed in the past, which remains a cloud over his career to this day.
There is one moment in his career that was heavily scrutinized despite him not having any input.
In 2019, the WBC introduced a new kind of title, the ‘Franchise Championship’, which Alvarez was the first recipient of.
The honorary title was supposed to be a prestigious award that was given to the best of the best which would require them to vacate their WBC world title to hold this higher accolade.
The Franchise Championship meant that fighters like Alvarez could compete in multiple divisions in big fights without having to face mandatory challengers.
Photo by Omar Vega/Getty Images
Suffice to say that a lot of fans, sharing their reaction in a Reddit thread from the time, were not happy with the way Alvarez’s career was being handled or the need to create any more belts and make things more confusing.
‘I wish I could root for Canelo. He’s so talented, yet favored by judges and so carefully handled.’
‘This is some WWE level non-sense.’
‘Complete joke.’
‘What a s— show, I think this proves just how much money talks in boxing.’
‘For f— sake. This is the kind of s— that turns people away from the sport.’
‘As a rule, WBC makes a new belt for every Canelo’s sparring session I heard.’
‘This is the worst thing I’ve ever read, what is the point in all this bulls— in boxing… Who the hell thinks this is a good idea!’
Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty ImagesFour other fighters were named as Franchise Champions after Canelo Alvarez
Canelo Alvarez was the first WBC Franchise Champion but the backlash that this move received didn’t put the governing body off handing out more of these titles.
It quickly turned out that Alvarez was just the start of the process, with the WBC deciding to crown several more champions over the next few years.
Canelo Alvarez – middleweight (2019-2020)Vasiliy Lomachenko – lightweight (2019-2020)Teofimo Lopez – lightweight (2020-2021)Juan Francisco Estrada – super flyweight (2021+)George Kambosos Jr. – lightweight – (2021-2022)