Canelo Álvarez: Difference between revisions

Mexican boxer (born 1990)

Santos Saúl Álvarez Barragán (Latin American Spanish: [saˈul ˈalβaɾes]; born 18 July 1990), known as Canelo Álvarez, is a Mexican professional boxer. He has won multiple world championships in four weight classes from light middleweight to light heavyweight, including unified titles in three of those weight classes and lineal titles in two. Álvarez is the first and only boxer in history to become undisputed champion at super middleweight, having held the WBA (Super), WBC and Ring magazine titles since 2020, and the IBF and WBO titles since 2021.

Álvarez is known as an excellent counterpuncher, being able to exploit openings in his opponents’ guards while avoiding punches with head and body movement. He is also known as a formidable body puncher.^[2][3] As of September 2023, Álvarez is ranked as the second best active boxer, pound for pound, by BoxRec.^[4] One of the highest-paid athletes in the world, he made Forbes list of the world’s highest-paid athletes in 2019, 2022, and 2023.^[5][6][7]

Early life

In an interview, Álvarez explained that he was born on the outskirts of Guadalajara, Jalisco, but his family is originally from Los Reyes, Michoacán.^[8] At the age of five, his family moved to their current home of Juanacatlán, Jalisco.^[9] Growing up on his family’s farm, he learned horseback riding, which he continues today.^[10][11] Álvarez is the youngest of eight children, seven of them boys; all of his brothers also became professional boxers.^[12] Among his brothers are welterweight boxers Ramón Álvarez, Ricardo Álvarez and former WBA interim world champion, Rigoberto Álvarez.^[13]

Canelo in Spanish is the masculine word for cinnamon, which is a common nickname for people with red hair.^[14] His mother, Ana Maria, also has red hair. In Mexico, it is common for people to associate red hair with the Irish soldiers who fought for Mexico in the Saint Patrick’s Battalion during the Mexican–American War. Speaking about his ancestry, Álvarez once said, “There might have been an Irish grandfather somewhere back in my past.”^[13][15]
He was bullied at an early age when he would be called “Jícama con Chile”, which translates as jicama with chilli flakes – a popular snack in Mexico.^[16]

Amateur career

Álvarez started boxing when he was around 13 years old, after watching his older brother Rigoberto debut as a professional boxer.^[17] In 2004, he won the silver medal at the Junior Mexican National Championships, held in Sinaloa. He became the 2005 Junior Mexican National Boxing Champion in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, at the age of 15. His amateur record was 44–2 with 12 knockouts.^[18]

Professional career

Early career

Álvarez turned professional at 15, shortly after his championship at the Junior Nationals, because his trainers at the time, father-and-son team Chepo and Eddy Reynoso, were unable to find suitable junior opponents for him. In his first 19 months as a professional, he knocked out eleven of his 13 documented opponents, all of whom were significantly older. However, the elder Reynoso stated in 2013 that Álvarez had fought ten more times in that span, winning all ten by knockout (KO), but that these fights (all in small venues in the Mexican state of Nayarit) were so poorly documented that it was not worth the trouble to seek to have the record corrected.^[12] This means that his actual record is 67–2–2 with 49 knockouts. His weight fluctuated in his three years as a professional including two documented fights within the light welterweight limit of 140 lbs before he settled in the welterweight division at 147 lbs.^[19]

Álvarez’s third official bout of his career was a win over future IBF lightweight champion Miguel Vázquez on 20 January 2006, in his home town of Guadalajara, Jalisco. On 28 June 2008, Álvarez defeated Vázquez again in a rematch. He also made world history on that fight card when he and all six of his brothers fought on the same night, with Canelo being the youngest.^[20][21][22] The only downside was that three of them failed to win their pro debuts. The other four more experienced brothers won.^[23] On 6 March 2010, he got a crushing third-round KO over Brian Camechis in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas.^[24] Álvarez then defeated José Cotto on the undercard of Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Shane Mosley to retain his WBC–NABF welterweight title.^[25]

Light middleweight

His sixth-round technical knockout (TKO) win over Luciano Leonel Cuello for the WBC Silver light middleweight title was held at the Vicente Fernández Arena.^[26] During the post-fight interview, Mexican singer Vicente Fernández gave Álvarez a horse. He was also given a horse by the mayor of Tepic, where Álvarez sometimes trains.^[27]

He next faced the former WBC welterweight champion Carlos Baldomir at the Staples Center in Los Angeles,