By Miguel Rivera
Mexican superstar Saul "Canelo" Alvarez was asked for his opinion on Manny Pacquiao's decision to disregard a right shoulder injury in order to move forward with a scheduled mega-fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Pacquiao lost a twelve round unanimous decision to Mayweather on May 2nd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Following the contest, at the post event press conference, Pacquiao told media members that he entered the fight with a right shoulder injury, and then further injured himself during the fourth round of the match.
The injury first happened in early April. Canelo, who lost a decision to Mayweather in 2013, would have withdrawn from the contest.
Canelo does think Pacquiao had no choice but to move forward because in his opinion the fight would have fallen apart for good if Pacquiao would have pulled out.
"Personally, I wouldn’t fight if I knew that I have an injury that would affect me so much. I wouldn’t do it and [certainly not with] such an important fight against Mayweather. I’d cancel or postpone it until I recovered," Canelo said to La Voz.
"I know that it was an almost impossible situation for Pacquiao because of all the agreed commitments. They had been negotiating the fight for a long time. Besides, the contract that Manny signed, [in the dressing room he was not allowed] to get a shot in his shoulder at least to feel less pain during the fight. But here are the results: a flat fight, very bad in my opinion. If Pacquiao would have been okay I don’t think it would have been a unanimous decision, and I do believe that he could have beaten Mayweather more and maybe even get him out of his strategy of running and hitting, running and hitting."
"But had he suspended or postponed the fight after so many negotiations, I think the fight would have died right there and they’d never have faced each other. I think Pacquiao wanted to fight Mayweather and Mayweather knew what this would generate for him and for the two pay-per-view TV stations. Pacquiao had no choice."
