By Keith Idec
NEW YORK – Eddie Hearn commends Canelo Alvarez for his willingness to fight Sergey Kovalev.
The Mexican middleweight star must move up two weight classes to box Kovalev for the WBO light heavyweight title. If, as expected, a deal is completed for an Alvarez-Kovalev fight November 2 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Alvarez will operate at a distinct size disadvantage against an opponent who has spent his entire 10-year pro career within the 175-pound division.
Hearn noted, however, that there’s one bigger opponent Alvarez seemingly has little interest in fighting. According to Hearn, Alvarez’s handlers haven’t expressed any interest in having Alvarez move back up to the super middleweight division to challenge Callum Smith (26-0, 19 KOs).
England’s Hearn – whose company, Matchroom Boxing, has promoted Smith – would love to make that high-profile fight for the unbeaten WBA 168-pound champion. That fight would be relatively easy to make because DAZN has Alvarez under contract for nine more fights and four more years, and Hearn is the primary promoter for that deep-pocketed streaming service. DAZN also has streamed Smith’s last two fights – his seventh-round knockout of George Groves in the final of the World Boxing Super Series and his third-round stoppage of Hassan N’Dam.
The 29-year-old Smith stands seven inches taller than Alvarez. The Liverpool native also is considered a high-risk, low-reward opponent for the significantly smaller Alvarez.
“I think Callum Smith is right now, without question, the No. 1 168-pounder in the world,” Hearn told a group of reporters recently. “Everyone’s afraid to fight him. He’s a little bit unproven other than the George Groves victory. But I think his size, the way that he’s beating people, every time we’ve put him in the mix for Canelo, it’s not even up for discussion.”
The 29-year-old Alvarez (52-1-2, 35 KOs) temporarily moved up to the super middleweight division late last year to fight Rocky Fielding.
Alvarez demolished England’s Fielding (27-2, 15 KOs), who was knocked down four times during a third-round, technical-knockout defeat December 15 at Madison Square Garden in New York. Alvarez won the WBA’s secondary super middleweight title from Fielding, but Smith, who knocked out Fielding in the first round of their November 2015 bout, is considered the WBA’s legitimate champion at 168 pounds.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
