Tag Archives: hoya

Posted on 09/16/2016

HBO PPV World Championship Boxing Preview: Canelo vs. Smith, Monroe vs. Rosado
By: William Holmes

On Saturday night AT&T Stadium, the home of the Dallas Cowboys, in Arlington, Texas will be the host site for HBO’s next pay per view offering.

Golden Boy Promotions will pit their superstar, Canelo Alvarez, against British boxer and WBO Junior middleweight champion Liam “Beefy” Smith. Most fight fans were hoping that Canelo would face Gennady Golovkin instead of Liam Smith, and view this fight as mismatch for Canelo.

Two former opponents for Gennady Golovkin, Gabriel Rosado and Willie Monroe Jr., will be fighting in the co-main event of the night. Highly rated prospects Joseph Diaz and Diego De La Hoya will fight on the televised portion of the undercard in matchups that they should win.

Photo Credit: Hogan Photos/Golden Boy Promotions

The following is a preview of the main event and co-main event of the night.

Gabriel Rosado (23-9) vs. Willie Monroe Jr. (20-2); Middleweights

The co-main event of the night will be between two boxers that were stopped by Gennady Golovkin, but remain top contenders in the middleweight division.

Monroe is twenty nine years old and Rosado is thirty, so both boxers are in the middle of their prime years. Rosado will be about an inch and half taller than Monroe, but he will be giving up about two and a half inches in reach.

Rosado has the clear edge in power. Rosado has stopped thirteen of his opponents while Monroe has only stopped six. Monroe has the edge in amateur experience as he won the New York Golden Gloves and reached the finals in the Golden Gloves in 2007. Monroe is also the son of Willie Monroe and the great nephew of Willie the Worm Monroe. Rosado does not have any notable accolades as an amateur to mention.

Monroe has been slightly more active than Rosado in recent years. Monroe fought once in 2016, twice in 2015, and three times in 2014. Rosado has fought once in 2016, once in 2015, and two times in 2014.

Rosado’s record can be deceiving. He does have nine losses on his record and has only gone 2-3 in his past five fights, but his losses have come against some of the biggest names in boxing. He has defeated the likes of Joshua Clottey, Antonio Guiterrez, Charles Whittaker, Sechew Powell, Jesus Soto Karass, Ayi Bruce, and saul Roman. His losses have come to Gennady Golovkin, Peter Quillin, Jermell Charlo, David Lemieux, Alfredo Angulo, Fernando Guerrero, and Derek Ennis.

Rosado is a warrior, but he has been stopped four times in his career. He was able to capture the middleweight crown in Big Knockout Boxing (BKB) outside of his normal career of boxing.

Monroe has defeated the likes John Thompson, Brian Vera, Brandon Adams, Vitaliy Kopylenko, Donatas Bondorovas, and won the Boxcino tournament in 2014. His losses were to Darnell Boone and Gennady Golovkin.

Rosado is a live dog in every fight he enters into, and this Saturday is no different. He would be a bigger underdog if Willie Monroe was known for his power, but he’s not and Rosado can box. This should be a very competitive fight, but this writer sees Monroe winning a decision victory.

Liam Smith (23-0-1) vs. Canelo Alvarez (47-1-1); WBO Junior Middleweight Title

Canelo Alvarez holds the WBC World Middleweight Title but will bumping down to the junior middleweight division to face Liam Smith for his WBO Junior Middleweight Title. An argument could be made that even though Canelo holds a legitimate middleweight title, he has never faced an actual true middleweight, and has only faced blown up junior middleweights and welterweights.

Liam Smith has already gone on the record to state that there will be no fight if Canelo cannot make the 154 pound weight limit. However, there is little reason to believe that Canelo won’t make weight.

Saturday will be Canelo’s 50th fight as a professional, and that’s an impressive feat for someone who is only twenty six years old. Smith is two years older than Canelo, and will have a slight height advantage.

Even though Canelo has nearly double the number of fights of Smith and is two years younger, Smith has been more active than Canelo in the past two years. Smith fought four times in 2015 and twice in 2014, while Canelo has averaged two fights a year since 2012. It should also be noted that Smith has never fought outside of the United Kingdom.

Neither boxer has an overly impressive amateur background. Smith was a two time winner of the ABA Championships as an amateur and Canelo won the Junior Mexican National Boxing Championships as a young teenager, but neither competed in the Olympics or won any medals at an amateur world championship.

Canelo’s only loss in his career was to Floyd Mayweather Jr. His list of defeated opponents is impressive, and he has defeated the likes of Amir Khan, Miguel Cotto, James Kirkland, Erislandy Lara, Alfredo Angulo, Austin Trout, Shane Mosley, and Alfonso Gomez.

Smith has never been in the ring with someone of Canelo’s talent. Smith has defeated the likes of Pregrad Radosevic, Jimmy Kelly, John Thompson, and Zoltan Zera.

The one major positive that jumps out at you when looking at Smith’s resume is that he has stopped his past eight opponents. Canelo has stop three of his past five opponents. However, Smith only has thirteen knockouts on his record while Canelo has thirty three.

Again, this will be the first time that Smith has fought outside of the United Kingdom and this fight will be held in Texas which has a large population of Mexican boxing fans. The fans will be hostile towards Smith, which is something he is not used to, and Canelo is the type of high quality opponent that Smith has never seen before.

The stars are aligned for an easy Canelo victory.

Posted on 08/30/2016

Can Canelo Repair His Reputation?
By: Sean Crose

Things are good yet not so good for Canelo Alvarez. The middleweight/junior middleweight/155 lb weight superstar and (to some, at least) lineal middleweight champ is rich, famous and about to fight yet another world titlist, Liam Smith, in front of an enormous crowd at Dallas’ AT&T Stadium in September. On the other hand, Canelo now has been labeled by many as being a duck…and being labeled a duck is never, not under any circumstances, a good thing for a fighter’s reputation. What’s more, some of Canelo’s comments to the press – and let’s be fair here, his English isn’t great when he speaks to the English speaking media – have only served to alienate him further from some fans.

Still, are things meant to terminally be this rough for the Mexican icon? Or will he someday redeem himself in the eyes of his detractors (let’s face it, the man was until very recently one of the few fighters in the modern era who didn’t seem afraid to face a real challenge)? That may actually all depend on two things: whether or not Canelo faces middleweight terror Gennady Golovkin before the Kazakh warrior begins to age significantly and whether or not Canelo will somehow manage to avoid being beaten before such a fight actually materializes.

To be sure, there are some who feel Canelo just isn’t talented or skilled enough to pick up the mantle left by Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, respectively. And make no mistake about it, Floyd and Manny are no longer kings of the ring. Even if they were to fight again, it would be more of a novelty than a snapshot of an era. Is Canelo near either man’s caliber, though? While only someone clouded by bias would claim the red headed star isn’t very, VERY good at what he does, there are some legitimate questions regarding the true quality of Canelo’s ring performances.

For instance, in his two biggest twins, Canelo bested an aged Miguel Cotto, and destroyed a known welterweight in Amir Khan. Impressive feats, sure, but how impressive when one looks at the whole picture? What’s more, few will give a win over the game, but widely unknown Smith a whole lot of props. Not when guys like GGG and any number of quality junior middleweights are – figuratively speaking – just a phone call away.

The truth is that Canelo can only completely and thoroughly re-establish his reputation by facing GGG in a timely manner. Even if he were to move on to best top level competition other than Golovkin, the letters GGG would hang over his reputation for as long as Canelo walked the earth. Which would be something no popular fighter would want to have happen.

Posted on 06/23/2016

Canelo-GGG: The Art Of Marination
By: Sean Crose

The much anticipated super fight between Saul Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin has been pushed back to 2017 – if not longer. Reports of this development – which has infuriated boxing fans – arrived yesterday and the fight world has been abuzz since. Team Golovkin has made it clear that it’s not really happy with this latest calendar retreat by team Canelo, but nonetheless seems to be taking it in stride.

Give team Canelo this – it’s honest. Golden Boy, which promotes Canelo, apparently made it clear to team Golovkin that it wants this fight to marinate more – a lot more – in order to make it as popular and as financially successful as possible. Whatever Golden Boy honcho Oscar De La Hoya has said about pleasing the fans, it looks like he may literally have been referring to fans of other sports rather than boxing – the kind that nonetheless will cough up good money to watch a big fight on pay per view because it’s the thing to do that weekend.

F. Scott Fitzgerald once claimed that action is character. And he was right. It’s our actions that define us. And De La Hoya’s actions make it clear that, despite what he may indicate, he doesn’t care about pleasing boxing’s fan base. If he did, Canelo-GGG would go down in the fall, or next spring at the latest. At the moment people are asking aloud if the fight will go down at all. I suspect it will, when the deck is stacked as much in Canelo’s favor as possible. The fact that Golovkin, whose no kid, may start showing signs of wear and tear in the near future would, I assume, please team Canelo.

Still, it’s good to keep in mind that boxing is a business. It’s should be more sport than business, but it’s still a business and team Canelo has mouths to feed, mortgages to pay, etc. Golden Boy Promotions undoubtedly employs more than a handful of people, after all. That line of thinking – and empathy – only goes so far, however, when you realize that Golden Boy is in the combat sport business, and it’s not giving combat sport fans the fight they want when they want it.

Pleasing the customer clearly has no place in the business of modern boxing.

With that in mind, it’s been suggested that boxing fans look to the bright side, and that honestly doesn’t seem like a bad suggestion. The bright side, of course, is the fact that there’s good fights being made out there. Interesting fights that are actually relevant. Thurman-Porter, Fury-Klitshcko II,Crawford-Postol, Kovalev-Ward…with matches like this around the corner it’s hard to say boxing is having a terrible year.

And while it’s true none of these fights may attract casual fans to the sport, people like The Sweet Science’s Frank Lotierzo make clear that Canelo-GGG might not be that competitive a fight anyway. By virtue of the eye test, it might simply be all GGG.

Perhaps fans should just let Oscar and Canelo do their thing – which might be to draw in casual fans without taking too much of a risk. Let team Canelo stick to its side of the street while fans stick to theirs. There’s good fights out there, after all. Besides, team Canelo may end up being too smart by half. Using the same tactics Floyd Mayweather was accused of can work if you’re the insanely talented Floyd Mayweather. When your talent level indicates high quality rather than greatness, however, chances are you may end up less like Floyd and more like Adonis Stevenson.

Remember him?