Is Canelo on a serious slide?

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I'll agree that Canelo has had a very good career. But to me, his career has been carefully constructed and carried along since the beginning. Why? Starting with his early record, another example of a "pretty boy" fighter bulging up his W-L record into the 40's with a collection of no-good, over-the-hill, undersized, local bums.

so we agree canelo has had a very good career. there are many fighters through the sports history i think you'll agree that have benefited from having the right management, promoter, network et cetera. i agree most of canelo's early fights were padding but to add another perspective, canelo is said to have turned pro at fifteen without much of an amateur career, so he was not only young & developing, he was also learning on the job. take someone like xander zayas, he turned pro at seventeen & has fifteen fights so far, note he is not as active as some prospects are, if he started another two years earlier it is not impossible to think his record could be approaching thirty fights by now. i'm with you about some of these well established amateurs padding their records but i have to give a fifteen year old kid a bit of breathing room

Then the obviously shady decisions by WBC-appointed judges in high profile fights. The footsies he played with Golovkin (when "Fishnets" coined the term "marinating") and the weight... saying he wasn't ready for 160 when he had already gone up to fight JCC Jr. at 170, and everybody and their brother knew Canelo walked around in the 180's. His PED use, for which he got a meaningless slap on the wrist.

bad judging has been a thing since as long as i can remember. is canelo to blame for a judges card? or does the blame fall on the wbc, the commission or canelo's promoter. i understand your frustration but really how much influence does canelo have here really? other parties involved have interests they are trying to protect. people think canelo played footsies with ggg but canelo fought ggg within a year of his last defense against liam smith at fifty four. at least canelo fought ggg, guys like felix sturm, sergio martinez & miguel cotto never did, canelo also fought ggg back to back, ggg was the favourite in the first fight, i can't find the odds for the second fight but i believe canelo was the underdog again. i agree the jccjr fight was just a cash grab but jr wanted that fight at one sixty eight, at one sixty four canelo was still moving up two divisions. i'm also disappointed with canelo's ped use but at least he got a slap on the wrist. guys like lamont peterson & erik morales along with others were allowed to fight after failing tests. what did floyd receive for his iv use before the manny pacquiao fight?

His clamoring for a fight against Mayweather, who was #1 p4p at the time, supposedly because he had earned it. THEN, thankfully... Mayweather gave him a boxing lesson in one of the easiest fights he's ever had. His cherry-picking and shameful reaching for trinkets like when he went up to fight Rocky Fielding, probably the WEAKEST champion in any weight division in history... bar none. Also going up to pick off lame zebra Kovalev, who had been exposed to the body by feather-punching Andre Ward.

i don't hold anything against canelo for challenging himself against the best fighter in the world at the time. you might not think canelo earned it but the same could be said of many of floyd's opponents. what did coner do to earn a shot at floyd? what about andre berto? & i don't see anything wrong with a young fighter challenging themselves & coming up short against the number one pound for pound fighter. it's no wonder fighters don't want to take risks these days, if fans are going to ridicule them for taking a shot. the fight with floyd is also one of the biggest pay per views, so you can't blame those involved around canelo or even canelo for wanting to gain on their investment. canelo even accepted a catchweight to get the fight done. every fighter has some gimme fights on their record. rocky was sandwiched between the two ggg fights, where i believe canelo was the underdog & danny jacobs who many thought had beaten ggg. charles martin is glaring at you right now. he wants that title. i agree sergey was past his best but he was a title holder & was coming off wins over two undefeated fighters. it was also canelo's first fight at light heavy & canelo was moving up two divisions from his previous fight. i thought sergey won the first fight with andre & that andre should have been disqualified in the rematch, so i disagree that andre exposed sergey

Through all of this... it's been his fans who have contributed to the Canelo hate that many people in boxing have. They put Canelo on a pedestal from the very start, which immediately turned a bunch of us off. Casuals seem to have forgotten the TRUE Mexican warriors of the past, like Salvador Sanchez, JCC, MAB, Eric Morales, etc.

some fighters' fans can be extreme, manny's fans were the same, floyd fan boys, the list goes on. i have been guilty of shouting the legend grows a time or three. but the run of opponents he was on since the first ggg fight was very good & just imagine if he had beaten dmitry, he took his shot & lost to the better man. i didn't really become a canelo fan until he signed to fight austin. i don't think you are referring to me as i remember sal, julio, marco antonio & erik

I've even criticized the way JCC began his career... pretty much in the same fashion as Canelo... bulging his record to the 40's or 50's before ever seeing a credible opponent. But at least JCC later faced the best of his time, without thinking about diva clauses... without having judges bought in his pocket... without marinating fights. The way REAL champions do their shit.

i think we agree on record padding. i think canelo has faced some of the best of his time as well, there may have been some clauses but canelo has also been on the opposite side where he had to agree to clauses against floyd & miguel. unfortunately this a side b side nonsense has grown over time. ray leonard was able to stipulate twelve rounds against marvin. can you blame canelo for the judges? shouldn't the commissions, governing bodies, promoters or networks bare some responsibility? i think fghting ggg within a year of his last defense at one fifty four is pretty good, when other fighters never fought ggg at all. do you not consider holding all four major belts in your division a real champion?

I'm sure I've forgotten many other Canelo examples, but that's pretty much why I've always maintained that his career has been manufactured. And again... knowing how you are pretty much a "show me" kind of guy... it surprised me that you would defend someone like Canelo so much.

i agree that some things in canelo's career may have been manufactured but he is not alone. i'm not defending canelo, i just don't single him out for things that many other fighters are also guilty of