The biggest boxing superstar, Canelo Álvarez, presented a dominant show on Saturday night to end the big fight of 2020, reaching a unanimous decision against the champion Callum Smith, undefeated so far, and winning the magazine’s heavyweight titles WBA, WBC and The Ring
The scorecards read 119-109, 119-109, and 117-111, all for Alvarez.
In front of 15,000 fans (20% capacity) at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Alvarez (54-1-2, 36 KOs) chased Smith (27-1, 19 KOs) punishing him with a series of consistent punches, upper bodies and hooks for 12 rounds. Alvarez became the first unified champion of Mexico in the history of the average weight.
“I’m the best in the world,” Alvarez said on the DAZN show via an interpreter. “In the first round, I tried to see what I brought, the skills or whatever, but as you can see, I showed what I am.”
In the final rounds, the intrigue of the fight went from who would win to whether Smith would survive Alvarez’s lethal blows and reach the distance.
The 6-foot-three Smith had a seven-inch-high advantage and an eight-inch range advantage over the 5-foot-8 Alvarez, but it didn’t matter, as Canelo was the big harasser of the Saturday night, eliminating the distance Smith prefers. and hitting blows constantly on the head and body.
“He was the best fighter tonight,” Smith said. “He’s smart. He’s smart. He cheats on you and makes you think. Before you know it, he’s closing the field. He’s a good fighter, but I’m a little disappointed with myself. His punch was really good. He surprised me a little bit. His defense was very good. “
Alvarez has now won two Smith brothers – eliminating big brother Liam Smith as junior middleweight in 2016 and now defeating Callum Smith as super middleweight by unanimous decision in 2020.
Alvarez, universally considered one of the world’s top two freestyle boxers, the best-selling boxing fighter, and already a four-division champion, has won The Ring magazine title in three different weight classes. He got 43% of his punches and 57% of his power punches, by CompuBox, in a full performance where his defense also shone. Smith got only 18% of his blows and 24% of his power blows.
It was Alvarez’s first fight since separating from Golden Boy Promotions and DAZN after contract disputes, and he returned to the ring for the first time in 13 months as his own promoter with little rust in the ring.
Even at 30 with 57 professional fights, Canelo still has a steady look at his peak. Still intimidated by fighters who often go into survival mode once they feel these blows, and it’s hard to find anyone in the super middleweight division who could pose a real threat to Alvarez.
But Alvarez said after the fight that he feels great in the middleweight division, noting that he doesn’t want to struggle with the scales. His main goal is to unify all the belts in the division with Billy Joe Saunders who currently has the WBO belt and Caleb Plant with the IBF belt. But the most lingering question is whether Alvarez will accept a trilogy fight with Gennadiy Golovkin after two hotly contested fights that ended in a draw and a victory for Alvarez.
“He doesn’t run away from anyone. I just showed that I was fighting the best,” Alvarez said. “If he’s going to fight, I’ll take it. But I just showed that I fight the best.”