The continued glut of boxing crossover bouts has not appeared to have whetted the appetite of Canelo Alvarez.
Alvarez, the undisputed 168-pound champion, has been asked repeatedly about entertaining fights with fighters such MMA star Kamaru Usman or YouTuber-turned-boxing upstart Jake Paul, but his response has been to shun them more than anything else.
Alvarez apparently has not changed his tune, even with the recent shocking upset knockout loss that Usman suffered at the hands of Leon Edwards at UFC 278. Edwards stopped Usman with a left leg kick in the fifth round.
Alvarez and Usman traded some heated words earlier in April, with Alvarez telling the UFC welterweight champion to “sit down it’s not your turn yet I have a legacy to make.”
Asked to respond to Usman’s loss recently, Alvarez refrained from sniping at this online adversary, even if he was not any more compelled to face the Nigerian-American in a crossover bout anytime soon.
“This happens,” Alvarez said of Usman’s knockout loss in an interview with FightHype.com. “ [It’s] part of the sport. Everybody can lose. You never know. I think he was winning, right? Just one single punch changed everything. Look he’s a great fighter.”
Alvarez insists he wants to continue breaking milestones in boxing before he even considers getting involved in more bizarre, if lucrative, matchups.
“I don’t know,” Alvarez said of crossover bouts. “Not now. I want to have great fights and make history in boxing and maybe when I’m finished with boxing maybe I can do that kind of fight.”
Alvarez is focused on settling his rivalry with Gennadiy Golovkin in their 168-pound undisputed title bout Sept. 17 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The Mexican superstar is coming off a points loss to Dmitry Bivol in their light heavyweight title match in May at T-Mobile Arena.
