Comments Thread For: When and how did Canelo Alvarez become the biggest star in boxing?

[BoxingUpdates]

Trying to retrace the point when a young red-headed Mexican collected the Face of Boxing tag is not an easy task. For there have been several stops, false starts and lessons along the way for Saul "Canelo" Alvarez, the iconic 34-year-old who has become, in the post Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao years, the sport's towering financial powerhouse.
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[Joseph]

That 80 percent thing can't be true... Can it?

[eco1]

When he fooled a bunch of idiots

[TreD]

He lost to Floyd.

[TonyRespectful]

That 80 percent thing can't be true... Can it?

Fo Sho

[TonyRespectful]

He lost to Floyd.

Wow,thanks for letting everyone know that little known fact

[TonyRespectful]

I’m going to keep saying it. Saul will challenge the winner of Bivol Beterbiev. You’ll see .

[Oldskoolg]

He just so happens to appeal to a very large casual fan base who is only interested because of ethnic nationalism. That demographic lacks sports stars so boxing stars are extremely important to them moreso than any one sports star would be for white and black Americans

[Corelone]

It was the fake billion dollars and the 3 hundred million dollar contract that set off the avalanche. Now Canelo has a lein on Eddys estates and running hog wild with pockets full of Eddys cash.

[Caxcan]

This writer suggested Canelo's star power not talent got him a win over Lara?? It was an overall competitive fight but Canelo did what he needed to in order to earn the win and had Lara looking like a deer in headlights for long stretches. Canelo even made the better adjustments between the two. The ironic part is between the two, it was Canelo who gave the determined effort like he was trying to win and pressed the action, whereas Lara fought like he was just trying to do the bare minimum to be competitive and bank on getting lucky on the scorecards despite a tentative and even downright negative performance.

As to the clen situation, all the evidence pointed to his innocence: Contamination is widespread in Mexico, his minute trace levels were consistent with contamination, his follicle test showed that his system was clean during the window in which he would have had to been juicing, and to top it off the whole situation wouldn't even be classified as a violation today under WADA which sets the Olympic standards. No doubt he he would have been completely cleared today with all the evidence. History will be kind to him on the issue especially given the hypocrisy-- he was one of the few fighters doing random blood testing at the time while some like Ward and Pacquiqo were refusing. And even Floyd who pointed fingers at Pac, ended up entering his fight with Pac in violation of anti doping protocol. Not to mention that half the top US based fighters are teamed with PED dealer Victor Conte.

At any rate, Canelo is the biggest star because he's got the deepest resume in boxing and stays active which many fighters these days don't do. Twenty years into his career and the talk is always about who he's fighting next when other fighters are the ones who need to catch up to him.