Boxing knowledgeable Paulie Malignaggi is aggravated by unified tremendous middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez’s determination to choose and select his opponents, choosing simpler choices whereas freezing out the proficient guys.
We simply witnessed how two high quality 168-pound fighters, David Benavidez and David Morrell, gave up on the tremendous middleweight division after being ignored by Canelo. As an alternative of Canelo preventing the very best, he’s eating on weaker guys with inflated resumes: Edgar Berlanga, Jaime Munguia, John Ryder, and Caleb Plant.
The sanctioning our bodies aren’t holding Canelo’s toes to the hearth to drive him to battle his obligatory challengers, and he’s not bending to strain from the media to step it up. Malignaggi feels Canelo can ignore the strain and the criticism as a result of he’s so widespread.
His massive fan base will proceed to help him regardless of who he fights, and so they don’t care that he’s not all for preventing dangerous fighters. They’re comfortable to pay $90 to look at Canelo defend in opposition to Berlanga, a fighter with a document that has no substance to it.
Recognition Breeds Political Management
“If you happen to don’t battle your high contenders, you’re going to be criticized. If you happen to’re capable of let it go and never let it have an effect on you, you continue to are a star,” mentioned boxing knowledgeable Paulie Malignaggi to the Probox TV YouTube channel, speaking about Canelo Alvarez choosing and selecting who he’ll battle because the unified tremendous middleweight champion.
“Though this can be a sport, it’s additionally about who’s the most well-liked. We’ve seen that so much in fight sports activities lately with the arrival of social media, the place the most well-liked man isn’t essentially the very best. You might have extra political management for those who’re extra widespread than a few of the guys who could also be higher than you.
“At this level, is Canelo the very best? Most individuals would say no. He can stay off that recognition for so long as he desires, and stay widespread regardless. When he says he’s the very best when he’s clearly not the very best in his weight class, it permits him to stay in that denial due to the recognition he has.
For normal fighters, they have to battle the very best to earn a living, and acquire recognition. They’ll’t take tender opposition with out it stunting their careers. We’re seeing that with Shakur Stevenson. He’s preventing tender opposition and his recognition is failing to extend.
However with Canelo, he can battle anybody as a result of he already has an enormous fan base, and so they’ve proven repeatedly that they’re positive with him preventing lesser guys like Munguia, Ryder, Plant, and Jermell Charlo.
“If you happen to’re going to stay that approach, it’s important to take that strategy. There’s nothing fallacious from a sporting sense of it, however from a private sense, if that’s the way in which he has to strategy it, then he’s doing it proper,” mentioned Malignaggi about Canelo.
“He’s an outdated 33. He’s been across the block” mentioned Chris Algieri about Canelo.
