LAS VEGAS — Canelo Alvarez sized up his next opponent during two separate faceoffs Wednesday and, in between, vowed to show Jermell Charlo “my real skills.”
Emphasis was placed on real, a tacit admission that Alvarez’s form over his past three fights wasn’t quite his best.
When he’s at the top of his game, it’s easy to see why Alvarez is an all-time great. He can counterpunch with the best of them off a back foot. He can apply nonstop pressure and cut off the ring with a punishing body attack, as he displayed in the Gennadiy Golovkin rematch.
Alvarez possesses many layers to his game and an educated boxing mind, as evidenced by his strategy to target Callum Smith’s left arm to neutralize his jab. The result: a detached bicep for the Englishman.
Alvarez remains the singular face of boxing, a global superstar and ESPN’s No. 4 pound-for-pound boxer. And he’s eager to put that trio of lackluster performances (by his standard) behind him.
Three days ahead of his third defense of the undisputed super middleweight championship, Alvarez oozed confidence that he would eliminate all the whispers that at 33 and after 63 pro fights, he was on the decline.
“I agree that a couple fights I don’t look the same, but that doesn’t mean other things,” Alvarez told ESPN on Wednesday. “I feel fresh, I feel young and I feel strong. I feel in my prime, and you will see Saturday.”
Alvarez was ESPN’s top pound-for-pound boxer after he scored an 11th-round TKO of Caleb Plant to collect all four belts at 168 pounds, one of four weight classes where he’s won world titles. That was November 2021.
Alvarez returned for a second fight at 175 pounds for a May 2022 fight against Dmitry Bivol and was soundly outpointed by the slick-boxing Russian. The setback was Alvarez’s first since his 2013 defeat to Floyd Mayweather and knocked him off the pound-for-pound pedestal.
Alvarez returned four months later to conclude his trilogy with a 40-year-old Golovkin in a unanimous decision, b
