Canelo vs Callum Smith on Dec 19th

[powerpuncher]

Canelo is brilliant to watch! He just went in there and bullied Smith with no respect for Callum's physical attributes. it was pretty masterful.

Meat fiasco aside, I think the Bryd scorecard has pitted many people against Canelo and all the claims of favouritism, gifts, advantages that comes with his power statusas boxings biggest draw.

I don't really understand people's hate of a guy who celarly boxes beautifully, puts on a show each time, faces good opposition and steps up divisions giving up any physical advantages he might have enjoyed at the lower weights. That should be applauded by boxing fans who are time and again left disappointed by boxers not fighting the best and promotors protecting their cash cows.

Maybe it's the fact he isn;t an English speaker either, but Canelo doesn't seem to be a brash, trash talker and living up the god life too much. He seems to do his talking in the ring.

I think as a person, Canelo is probably fine. I don’t think he himself as a fighter ducks people, but there is no doubt that he has been on the side of many fortunate decisions as well as get to call the shots for all of his fights.

"Many fortunate decisions?".
Of course there is the disputed draw with Golovkin and if Byrd had put in a sensible score I don't think people would be half as partisan toward him as they are. The second GGG fight I wouldn't say was a fortunate decision, I think he just about edged that one.

Not sure what other fights he was forunate to win. I don't recall the Lara fight per-se but from what I read it was a "close" fight one a tough one to score.
But given Canelo is the ultimate A-side fighter, and we know since the dawn of time the A-fighter is always favoured, and it's hardly like it's unique to Canelo in that regard, a dodgy scorecard on few occasions in over 40 fights isn't loads of fortune.

And what does calling the shots for his fights mean? Doesn't that always happen, again for the A-side fighter? Not unique to Canelo, it's just that he's the poster boy, so he gets more stick than the rest.

I thought he lost to Trout. Not a bad decision but I thought he lost. Many people thought he lost to Lara (I had Canelo winning). A draw scorecard against Floyd that was completely absurd. A draw against GGG that he definitely should have lost. The second fight with GGG was fortunate also because I think 85% of media and fans (there was actually data on this) had GGG winning or a draw. So on my scorecards, he has 4 losses. It’s only because of his stardom that he only has the 1 loss and one card was obviously very problematic on that one.

Also, I get he is the A side and calls the shots, but he didn’t become the A side by being the best. He became the A side by being the best Mexican fighter in the world and has a whole country backing him. Because of this, he makes a ton of money which in turn has allowed him to jump around weights and demand hydration clauses as well as other random stipulations. I have always said that if Canelo didn’t have the backing he had, he would have at least a few more losses and wouldn’t be nearly as highly regarded.

For what it’s worth, I do think he’s a very good fighter, but definitely overhyped.