Saul Alvarez vs Matthew Hatton for the WBC Light Middleweight title

[Kev]

Your missing the point about Ryan Rhodes.

The point was people like Ryan Rhodes, Vanes Martirosyan and Alfredo Angulo have been after the belt for a couple of years and they see someone else, this time cue ball head, jump ahead of them and get a shot at the light middleweight title.

Yes but your missing the point about boxing. It isn't a meritocracy. It's a comercially driven entertainment sport where popularity matters. It's less like organised sports like soccer and more like the movies. Is it fair that Hollywood can make gazillions of dollars churning out utter dross disaster movies or focker's style comedies that are enjoyed by the idiot masses whilst great low budget movies or foreign films get overlooked? No but that is the way the world works.

I expect you yourself would rather watch Avatar than Baaria or White Ribbon and most boxing fans would rather see Saul Alvarez fighting for a world title than Ryan Rhodes.

Your missing the point again. I want to see Saul Alvarez fighting for a world title. That isn't my problem. My problem is the choice of opponent FOR the world title fight. If he'd have been fighting Ryan Rhodes or Angulo for the title, I wouldn't have had anything against it. Pac fighting for the title was a joke but, to be fair, he was the best welterweight in the world and it was the next logically step up if he wanted another title in another weight. Hatton is only the European welterweight champion who would get destroyed by the majority of the top ten fighters in the division. At least, by fighting Ryan Rhodes (or anyone else in the top ten), Alvarez would be fighting one of the best in the division.

I agree that Matthew Hatton isn't the ideal opponent to win a world title from, but he's actually a very respectable opponent for Alvarez at this stage in his career. He's the reigning European light welterweight champion, is unbeaten in 10 fights and has defended his title two times. He's also rated number 5 in the world in both the WBA and WBC rankings.

Alvarez is twenty years old.

It's not a bad fight in all honesty, if it was for a vacant light welter title it would be completely legitimate imo.

At light middle it's clearly a case of negotiating power over merit but as I couldn't care less about Ryan Rhodes or any of the other non entities at the weight class it doesn't bother me.