Canelo was okay with the weight gap as long as the money was enormous. It should be the same thing as fighting Benavidez. There would be a difference in weight, but the money Alvarez would receive would make it worth it.<\/p>\n
Ihe was brave enough to make that weight jump at 38, the Mexican superstar Canelo should follow his lead to face Benavidez at 175. 4 reasons why Canelo would receive less criticism for losing to Benavidez<\/p>\n
Benavidez\u2019s move to 175 \u2013 With him fighting at light heavyweight, Alvarez couldn\u2019t receive as much of a backlash for losing to him now. Things are different because Benavidez is no longer in the same division as Canelo at 168.<\/p>\n
Alvarez is now 35, and he\u2019s showing signs of slippage. It\u2019s not just the Crawford fight where Canelo looked to have lost elements of his game due to aging. He\u2019d shown vulnerability against Edgar Berlanga and Jaime Munguia.<\/p>\n
Losing to Benavidez would be acceptable if it\u2019s a competitive fight. All Canelo has to do is be competitive in losing, and fans will give him a free pass. Benavidez has shown that he\u2019s worthy of the pound-for-pound #1 spot with his recent wins over David Morrell, Anthony Yarde, and Oleksandr Gvozdyk.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s run the gauntlet at 175 and looked like pure gold. For whatever reason, the Ring staff hasn\u2019t voted Benavidez as #1 P4P, but he deserves it in my book. As such, Canelo losing to him wouldn\u2019t be viewed negatively.<\/p>\n
It would be a legacy-enhancing move for Canelo to take a high-risk fight against Benavidez. The criticism that Canelo has taken over the years for choosing not to fight \u2018The Mexican Monster\u2019 would finally disappear.<\/p>\n
When Benavidez was at super middleweight, Canelo never showed any interest in fighting him. It didn\u2019t matter that he was Canelo\u2019s mandatory for his WBC belt. The fight never happened. Now, there\u2019s less to lose for Alvarez if he fights<\/p>\n
Chris Williams is a senior writer for Boxing News 24, covering the sport since 2013 and reporting ringside from major events worldwide. His coverage dives into both established champions and hungry prospects battling for recognition. Over the years, Chris has contributed to numerous leading boxing outlets, earning respect for his sharp analysis and insider perspective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canelo was okay with the weight gap as long as the money was enormous. It should be the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-329729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}