Saul Alvarez

Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, born July 18, 1990, in Juanacatlán, Jalisco, Mexico, was destined to become one of the best in boxing. His boxing roots run deep with his brother, Rigoberto Alvarez, being a former WBA Interim World Champion. Initiated into boxing at the age of 13, Canelo demonstrated a natural flair for the sport, achieving an impressive amateur record of 44–2. He began his professional boxing career at 15 and with a series of knockout victories, he clinched his first world title, the WBC light middleweight belt, in a thrilling bout against Matthew Hatton in 2011.

Later on, his exceptional power and skill were on full display as he successfully gained wins against world-class opponents such as Erislandy Lara, Liam Smith, and Miguel Cotto. Despite a temporary setback in his career, Alvarez bounced back stronger, reclaiming his title in 2017 by defeating Gennadiy Golovkin. His performances remained consistent, and his victories over boxing titans like Daniel Jacobs in 2019, Callum Smith in 2020, and Caleb Plant in 2021 asserted his dominance in the sport.

After failing to get a WBA world light heavyweight title in a fight with Dmitrii Bivol in 2022, Canelo Alvarez continued to demonstrate his prowess, successfully defending his super middleweight titles against Gennadiy Golovkin in 2022 and in his recent fight against John Ryder in 2023. His most notable achievement, however, lies in becoming the first Mexican boxer to win world championships in four different weight classes. Canelo was also ranked as one of the best active boxers in the world, pound for pound, by BoxRec, ESPN, and the Boxing Writers Association of America.

Canelo Alvarez has transformed himself into one of the best pressure-fighting counter punchers in the sport. He has been able to push back significantly larger fighters than himself on a consistent basis and this is primarily due to his defensive acumen while applying pressure. The pressure all starts with the footwork. Canelo almost always employs the strategy of stepping forward with his rear foot first then his lead foot which is the opposite of the basics of boxing. This allows him to step his lead foot into punching range while keeping the rest of his body back. This does two things. One, it masks the fact that he is in punching range and allows him to sneak in punches on opponents who don’t notice the step. Two, if his opponents do notice and they punch, Canelo has a split second longer to see the punch, defend the punch, and counter it.

Pressuring his opponents back and countering their punches eventually leave his opponents gun-shy. Canelo will then open up and break down his opponents even further with combinations, often ending with a powerful left hook to the body. It’s good practice to end combinations with a lead hand jab to prevent counters and to reset yourself, but Canelo takes it a step further and ends his combinations with the left body hook to do more damage while resetting himself after combinations. The body hooks condition his opponents to expect it. Once this happens, Canelo uses his signature technique which is his shovel hook. This is when he starts his left hook low to make it look like he’s aiming for the body, except he shoots it diagonally up to the head of his unsuspecting opponent.