After the fight: Canelo Alvarez is the best but praise his opponents too

Canelo Alvarez proved once again that he is the best boxer in the world, but even in victory, he can’t make everybody happy. 

Canelo Alvarez further cemented his place as the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world with his conclusive unanimous decision victory over Callum Smith. After Alvarez dominated a previously undefeated Smith, some are still finding ways to detract from Alvarez’s boxing accomplishments.

Some people are downplaying Alvarez’s win over Smith and are trashing Smith’s reputation in the process.

Smith deserves respect in defeat to Alvarez. He was a legitimate champion and earned the WBA super middleweight title against George Groves. Those boxing malcontents that are ragging on Smith are also ragging on Groves.

You can’t make everybody happy, and some people will never be satisfied. Smith ran through George Groves in 2018 to win the World Boxing Super Series tournament and the WBA belt. After Smith’s rather one-sided loss to Alvarez, people are finding all sorts of ways to tear him down, starting with his win over Groves.

I saw opinions on boxing Twitter that Groves was old and washed up when he fought Smith. Groves was only 30 years old when he fought Smith. Yes, his two TKO losses to Carl Froch took years off his career, but Groves was coming off a solid unanimous decision win against a green but explosive Chris Eubank Jr. I can imagine people reading that last sentence and starting a diatribe against Eubank. It never ends.

Smith, Groves, and Eubank were and are all talented boxers. They may not be the best, but like the film, Highlander says, “There can only be one.” In any division, there’s one boxer that’s better than the rest. We need them to fight each other to figure out who the best is.

Canelo Alvarez deserves praise for his win over Callum Smith, and boxers as a whole deserve more credit for their efforts in the ring

Most have considered Alvarez the best all-around boxer for the last several years, and he keeps reaffirming that belief. His commanding win over Smith is a testament to Alvarez’s gifts, not Smith’s deficits.

People don’t understand that there’s a lot more that goes into a boxer’s performance than records, physical statistics, and other metrics. We’re talking about regular people who have problems like anybody else.

Turmoil in personal lives, financial stress, relationship issues, and mental health can make a difference in how any athlete performs whatever their stage is. Did any of those issues play into Alvarez vs. Smith? Probably not, but they’ve impacted some of the best boxers in history, and whenever they lose, there’s a mass of people there to say how overrated they were.

Smith took the fight on three-weeks notice and suffered what looked like a serious bicep injury early in the fight. He might have looked better with more preparation and going through the fight without injury, but he still would have lost because Alvarez is that good.

It’s impressive Smith finished the fight on his feet with the way his arm looked after the fight. If it was a bicep tear, that’s the same injury that contributed to Miguel Cotto’s loss in his final fight to Sadam Ali. It’s a major injury that most wouldn’t be able to fight through.

The L.A. Times is quick to deem Smith as a byproduct of a “British sports scene that overrates its soccer players and really, really overrates its fighters.”

Way to insult an entire country and make a sweeping generalization while you’re at it.

They’re also quick to characterize Alvarez’s win over Smith as a “debacle.” What a load of poorly used hyperbole. In that regard, the L.A. Times perfectly resonates with social media trolls who find a way to subvert anything positive in boxing.

Can’t a fighter ever be allowed to have any flaws? Nobody is perfect, and neither are boxers or any athlete. Smith was a valid opponent who doesn’t deserve to have his entire life’s work reduced to rubble because he lost decisively to the best boxer in the world.

The criticism will fly no matter who Alvarez fights next. If he beats Gennadiy Golovkin in a trilogy bout, then Golovkin will have been too old. If he beat Caleb Plant, then he was overrated. The same would be said if Alvarez beat Jermall Charlo, Dmitry Bivol, or Artur Beterbiev.

If Alvarez loses to anybody within the next three years, then he will be labeled over-hyped, and his conqueror will have their credit unceremoniously stripped away by those whose first instinct is to utter something negative.

Fortunately, there are those out there that have a knowledge of the sweet science that goes beyond the records page on Boxrec.com and see what boxers have to go through to compete at the sport’s highest level.

Smith became a champion with his fists and sacrificed his well-being in the process like every other fighter. He was a champion, and anyone that equates him to a sparring partner doesn’t respect the dedication it takes to be a world-class boxer. They certainly don’t respect the sport as a whole.

Any boxer can lose. Most do at some point, and there is always a mixture of reasons why they lost. Like anything in life, boxing’s winners and losers are determined through cause and effect. There are no guarantees. Give boxers a break and appreciate them because they choose to put it all on the line in the ring because boxing is their passion.