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Canelo Alvarez first fight from 2005
Saul Canelo Alvarez has now earned a 60 win, 2 loss and 2 tie record since going pro as a boxer in 2005 against Abraham Gonzalez in Arena Chololo Larios in Tonala, Mexico. Canelo got the TKO finish over Gonzalez in the fourth round.
Although Alvarez’ former trainer Chepo Reynoso told ESPN in 2013 there were even more fights that didn’t make the record books:
“The official record book will attest that in his first 19 professional months, Canelo Alvarez fought no fewer than 13 opponents, all significantly older, knocking out 11. What it won’t reveal is that he won 10 more pro fights, all of them knockouts, Chepo says, and all of them undocumented. The bookkeeping at smaller venues in the state of Nayarit, near Jalisco, was so shoddy that the Reynosos figured petitioning for a correction was never worth the trouble.”
Let’s take a look at Canelo’s pro-debut (this playlist includes almost all of Alvarez’ pro fights):
Canelo’s crushing KO of Carlos Baldomir
One of the fights that first propelled Alvarez to global stardom was his 2010 finish of the fearsome Carlos Baldomir. The Argentinian was the former WBC welterweight champ and had wins over Zab Judah and Arturo Gatti. He lost his title to Floyd Mayweather but until Alvarez, no one had knocked him out.
Baldomir told ESPN at the time, “It’s true that he hits hard. He hits really hard. His power really surprised me. This kid is the real deal. And he’s going to be a champion. No one has hit me like he hit me before. He knocked me out and nobody has ever knocked me out.”
Defending the title against Kermit Cintrón
In 2011 Alvarez defended his WBC 154 pound title with a finish of Kermit Cintrón. Let’s take a look:
Decision loss to Floyd Mayweather, Jr.
By far the biggest fight of Canelo’s career when it happened in 2013, was his 152 pound catchweight bout against Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Mayweather timed it perfectly, catching Alvarez just a couple years before his peak and got away with a decision win, the first loss on Canelo’s record.
Controversial trilogy with Gennady Golovkin
One of Alvarez’ biggest rivalries has been against Kazakhstani legend “GGG” Gennady Golovkin. The first fight ended in a very controversial draw and many believed GGG had earned the win.
As Bad Left Hook wrote in 2017, “Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin put on a show worthy of the hype tonight, but in the end, we were left with an unsatisfying and highly controversial three-way draw.”
Let’s watch that first one:
Despite the controversy the fight was a huge success, surpassing the Mayweather bout to achieve a $27 million dollar gate from sales of over 17,000 tickets. At the time this was the third highest gate in boxing history. The pay-per-view was reported to have sold over 1.3 million domestic buys.
They ran it back one year later (Alvarez failed a drug test that delayed the bout half a year) and this time Canelo scored the win on two of the judges cards with the third scoring it a draw. Let’s see what the fuss was about:
The loss to Dmitry Bivol
In 2022, Alvarez moved up to light heavyweight and lost a surprising decision to the Russian Dmitry Bivol. Let’s take a look:
Canelo Alvarez dominates Jermell Charlo
Canelo put on a masterful performance against Charlo on Saturday night. Watch the official highlight video below.
Check here for our full coverage of this weekend’s Canelo Alvarez vs Jermell Charlo bout.
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