Canelo Alvarez had even less time to train for the Avni Yildirim mismatch than anyone realized.
Alvarez trained for only one month for that mandated defense of his WBC super middleweight title because he contracted COVID-19 sometime after he defeated Callum Smith on December 19. The four-division champion dominated Yildirim anyway, but he hadn’t revealed his battle with the coronavirus until a recent interview with Graham Bensinger.
“I had COVID,” Alvarez told Bensinger in a segment that debuted Wednesday on Bensinger’s YouTube channel. “I got COVID. I started first with no sense of smell or taste. I got tested and I had to be 15 days in isolation because my wife had it, too. But I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t really feel anything. I had no other symptoms except what I said, no taste or smell.”
Alvarez previously has said that he had a normal training camp for the Yildirim fight, despite that it took place just 10 weeks after he beat England’s Smith (27-1, 19 KOs) by unanimous decision in their 12-round, 168-pound title fight at Alamodome in San Antonio. Regardless, his truncated training camp didn’t impact Alvarez’s performance against Turkey’s Yildirim (21-3, 12 KOs).
The Mexican icon dropped Yildirim with a right hand during the third round. Joel Diaz, Yildirim’s trainer, wouldn’t allow his fighter to answer the bell for the fourth round and he lost by technical knockout at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.
The 30-year-old Alvarez (55-1-2, 37 KOs) said he hasn’t suffered any lingering effects from COVID-19 while training for his upcoming fight against England’s Billy Joe Saunders (30-0, 14 KOs), the WBO 168-pound champion. They’ll meet in a super middleweight title unification match May 8 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
“I don’t want to make it sound as if nothing happened because I’ve known a lot of people who have gotten it much harder, or even died,” Alvarez said. “The father of a friend of mine … it affected his lungs a lot. He’s coughing up saliva with blood. But for me, it didn’t affect me much. But it’s complicated.”
Later in the interview with Bensinger, Jose “Chepo” Reynoso, Alvarez’s longtime co-trainer, disclosed that he was hospitalized twice, late in December and early in January, due to COVID-19. Reynoso said he still hasn’t fully recovered.
“Afterwards, I came out of there with diabetes and high blood pressure,” Reynoso said. “Those are the consequences COVID left me with. Many of my friends and acquaintances died. So, I’m lucky to still be alive.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
