Mexican Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (50-1-2, 34 KOs) is taking on WBA’s super middleweight Champion Rocky Fielding (27-1-0, 15 KOs) Saturday night at Madison Square Garden.
Just three months after his rematch victory against Kazakhstan’s Gennady Golovkin, “Canelo” is moving up to the 168-pound class to try to win a title in three different divisions, something very few men have achieved in the history of Mexican boxing.
In fact, only eight Mexican fighters have won title belts in three or more categories: Juan Manuel Marquez, Jorge Arce, and Erik Morales have four each; while Marco Antonio Barrera, Julio Cesar Chavez, Fernando Montiel, Abner Mares, and Leo Santa Cruz have three each.
This will be the Briton’s first title defense after winning it in July from German boxer Tyron Zeuge in an outstanding performance which ended in a fifth-round TKO victory.
Fielding’s belt, however, is a second-tier version to the one held by Callum Smith, who knocked out Fielding in a 2015 British super middleweight title fight.
Meanwhile, Canelo’s only loss came via majority decision at the hands of Floyd Mayweather Jr. back in 2013 in a light middleweight title fight.
Due to Fielding’s advantage in height (three inches) and reach (half an inch), Alvarez may need to use the first few rounds to study his opponent, but once he’s done with it, the fight won’t last much longer.
In fact, bookies expect Alvarez to win and the lines reflect that as the Mexican is a -1750 favorite, with the comeback on Fielding at +850.
“Canelo” is the most skilled and experienced fighter and should be able to outbox and overpower the Englishman to score a knockout win somewhere in the middle rounds.
Canelo has taken part in 13 title fights throughout his 13-year career and has won 12 of them, while for Fielding this will be just his second one in his eight years of professional boxing.
