SPORTS SHORTS 280: SAUL "CANELO" ALVAREZ IS THE RING 2021 FIGHTER OF THE YEAR
By Maloney L. Samaco
PhilBoxing.com
Sat, 01 Jan 2022
Saul "Canelo" Alvarez became the first undisputed super middleweight world champion, and the first Mexican boxer to become an undisputed champion in any weight division in the three or four-belt era. Because of these achievements he became the near unanimous choice for The Ring’s 2021 Fighter of the Year.
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Canelo won it for the second time. He also won the award in 2019. That year he defeated Daniel Jacobs to unify three middleweight world titles (WBC, WBA Super and IBF) and then scored an impressive knockout of Sergey Kovalev in the 11th round when he leaped up two divisions higher to win the WBO light heavyweight title.
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Canelo's conquest of the super middleweight division actually began on December 19, 2020, when he unanimously outscored Callum Smith 119-109, 119-109 and 117-111 to take the WBA and WBC titles. He became a four-division world champion and this convincing triumph fueled his historic victories in 2021.
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Alvarez competed four times in 11 months, including the Callum Smith and Caleb Plant clashes, the caliber of opponents and frequency of fights never happened to any other elite fighter in modern boxing.
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He started his 2021 activities with the easy demolition of WBC mandatory challenger Avni Yildirim, who gave way for Canelo to clash with Smith for the vacant WBC title with the deal that the winner would fight him.
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Alvarez faced Yildirim as promised on February 27 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, and destroyed him in three one-sided rounds. That lopsided fight was not supposed to happen to Alvarez, but he had guaranteed the Turkish to engage in it.
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With four fights in 11 months, most fans would approve that boxing's pound-for-pound and pay-per-view king needed one lesser foe as a respite. But his next two matches counted the most for the Fighter of the Year selection.
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On May 8, Alvarez stopped Billy Joe Saunders in the eighth round when Saunders didn't stood up for the ninth. The win gave Alvarez the WBO titles with his WBA (Super) and WBC super middleweight championships. The win improved Alvarez's unbeaten streak to 15.
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Saunders suffered his first career loss, was hurt in Round 8 and at about the 1:30 mark, he wobbled when hit by Canelo’s flurry of blows and a solid right uppercut.
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A crowd of 73,126 who came to see the fight was announced at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, breaking the record of the largest indoor attendance for a boxing event. The previous record was 63,350 for the Muhammad Ali-Leon Spinks rematch in 1978 at the Superdome, New Orleans, Louisiana.
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On November 6, Alvarez stopped Caleb Plant in the 11th round to win the undisputed supermiddleweight championship before a mostly pro-Canelo sellout crowd of 16,586 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Alvarez sent Plant to the canvas with a thundering left hook early in the 11th round. Plant got up to beat the count but Canelo came forward and with a barrage of blows quickly floored his opponent for a second time. Referee Russell Mora waved it off at 0:45 of the 11th making Canelo the undisputed champion.
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At ringside, Showtime blow-by-blow commentator Mauro Ranallo capped the memorable event with a great statement. "The coronation is complete,” Ranallo shouted. “All hail King Canelo! Viva Mexico’s first undisputed champion!”
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“For me it’s an honor. Like I always say, I love boxing. I do this because I love boxing, and whatever is coming is an honor for me,” Alvarez told The Ring. “It’s a bonus for me because I love this sport. I respect this sport and I always try to do my best in boxing.
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Canelo's fights for the 2019 award were of known opponents for the titles in two weight classes. But his target in 2021 was different.
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In the 37-year-history of a 168-pound weight class, many great boxing legends became champions but never became undisputed, like Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns, Roy Jones Jr., James Toney, Joe Calzaghe, Nigel Benn, Chris Eubank, Andre Ward, Carl Froch, Mikkel Kessler and others.
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“I think Caleb Plant was a bigger fight because there was only one more belt left, so the magnitude of the fight was bigger, but the fight I enjoyed a lot was Billy Joe Saunders, because he talked a lot of shit and we had 73,000 people in the arena,” Alvarez said.
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Plant fought well enough and won some rounds, but he was trailing on all three scorecards going into the 11th round:
Patricia Morse Jarman of Las Vegas: 96-94 Canelo
Dave Moretti of Las Vegas: 97-93 Canelo
Steve Weisfeld of New Jersey: 98-92 Canelo
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Alvarez had achieved his undisputed dream in just 11 months to become only the sixth male boxer to accomplish it in the four-belt era, joining middleweight Bernard Hopkins (2004), middleweight Jermain Taylor (2005), junior welterweight Terence Crawford (2017), cruiserweight Oleksandr Usyk (2018) and junior welterweight Josh Taylor (2021).
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Runners Up of The Ring Fighter of the Year 2021 are Tyson Fury, Oleksandr Usyk, Josh Taylor and Terence Crawford.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Maloney L. Samaco.
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