Hmm, IF you truly "don't fkin care" you'd be calling out Fury as well. Methinks you jus wolfin and that's OK for marketing purposes.....but keepin it real you're not remotely competitive with Usyk. This ain't John Ruiz
If Canelo was "a man on a mission" at 175lbs there would be no Golovkin fight set up for September, instead there'd be a tentative plan to fight the winner of June's Beterbiev vs Smith unification. The Bivol fight wouldn't stop such a tentative plan being talked about - Canelo and Reynoso talked about similar plans when chasing the undisputed 168lb title.
I'm pretty confident that Canelo will beat Bivol and I give him a lot of credit for taking this fight as it's not what Reynoso and Canelo usually do when trying to beat champions in divisions above Canelo's current division.
Canelo & Reynoso waited until Golovkin was 36 before going anywhere near him at (full) 160lbs and at 175lbs they waited until Kovalev was 36 and spending more time in night clubs than the gym.
Although the Bivol fight is a brave move, a braver move would have been taking on Beterbiev when he's still strong at 37. The fact that the Bivol fight was taken instead and no immediate subsequent fight with Beterbiev even talked about imo suggests that Reynoso thinks Artur is still too formidable at the moment. Consequently I suspect there will be a delay in Canelo taking on Artur. The length of that delay will depend on how good/bad Beterbiev looks in his next fight or two - and as he's 38 next January, Reynoso knows that there has to be some sign of decline fairly soon.
Nothing you have written is particularly unreasonable but the flaw I see is that none of the people Canelo is accused of swerving (Charlo, Benavidez, Beterbiev) have particularly good resumes and/or standout wins themselves. Fans seem to apply this logic whereby anyone who stays undefeated by minimising risk whilst simultaneously calling out Canelo gets elevated into a killer. What’s Beterbiev done to make the Bivol fight? He’s fighting a guy (Smith) who lost to Bivol in his next fight.
Beterbiev and Smith can easily fight because they're on the "same side of the street" (Smith is co-promoted by Star & TR) and it unifies 3 of the belts however Beterbiev and Bivol are on "different sides of the street" being with Top Rank and Matchroom. It's an annoying reason for not making the fights that the fans want to see but unfortunately these promotional companies don't work together that often.
One of the reasons Canelo gave for forcing DAZN to free him from his contract was that he wanted to be free to challenge the best no matter what promotional outfit they were with. To be fair this is exactly what he did at 168lbs however this is not what he's done at 175lbs.
Canelo is a free agent and so could have approached Top Rank with a view to fighting the boxer regarded as the best light heavyweight champion - according to Arum no approach was made to fight Beterbiev only to fight Smith. Canelo and Reynoso decided to fight the fighter regarded as the second best light heavyweight champion - still a brave move however this is the second time Canelo has chosen to fight a light heavyweight champion other than Beterbiev - Artur being only 34 when Canelo fought Kovalev.
My view is not that Canelo is ducking fighters - Charlo and Benavidez have no chance against him - but that he's delaying fighting older, dangerous champions until they're no longer the dangers that they once were.
IMO if Canelo and Reynoso were as determined to become undisputed at 175lbs as they were for 168lbs, no September opponent would have been slated and there would be the possibility of facing the Beterbiev vs Smith winner, most likely Beterbiev, in Nov/Dec.
The Golovkin fight probably means Beterbiev will be at least 38 before any fight with Canelo is made.
37 or 38 - some would say they waited for him to get old regardless. Again, nothing you have said is particularly unreasonable, but you’ve kept all the onus on Canelo here where Beterbiev seems to get a free pass for allowing his career to unfold passively.
When Canelo’s people approached Arum to fight Smith they wouldn’t talk about a fight with Beterbiev according to Arum and so Top Rank haven’t been totally passive on Beterbiev’s behalf.
They couldn’t force Canelo to fight Beterbiev. Team Canelo clearly had a plan and it didn’t involve fighting Beterbiev straight away - Artur has to wait until Canelo decides it’s time to fight.
As Canelo is a free agent and seems to be allowed to do just about anything he wants by the sanctioning bodies - he doesn’t seem to have to deal with mandatories at 168lbs - he gets away with these delaying tactics and there’s nothing Top Rank can do about it on Beterbiev’s behalf.
Beterbiev has individual agency like anyone else, he doesn’t have to wait for Top Rank to do everything for him. Plus, Arum’s relationship with the truth is often tenuous so I wouldn’t be prepared to rely on that as objective verification of much. I think we’ve progressed this discussion as far as we can. I accept part of your critique of Canelo’s opponent selection but he still has the best resume compared with any other active boxer and, with the possible exception of Terence Crawford, is doing more to take ownership of his career than anyone else. Beterbiev could have been “undisputed” (I don’t like that term but it’s a separate discussion) by now if he’d demanded it. He hasn’t and thus has left belts to be picked up by other people in “his” division.
Canelo's earning power allowed him to become a free agent, other fighters don't have that luxury, nor the freedom of being able to ignore mandatories for that matter. Fights with other belt holders who are with other promotional companies cannot just be demanded or called out - as Terence Crawford has found over the past 4 or 5 years.
Canelo now has the freedom and power to make fights whenever he wants - if he wants he can delay fights until an opponent has declined a bit further and he can dabble in other divisions picking up world titles without having to think about his mandatory commitments as a champion and there's nothing any other fighter or any promotional company can do about it as the sanctioning bodies usually allow him to do what he likes.
This is too much power for any one fighter to have no matter how good they are - especially if they choose to use this power in the way that Mayweather (@ 147/154) and Canelo have. This isn't taking ownership of their careers this is taking ownership of boxing itself and imo it's totally wrong.
Finally, I can't rate Canelo's resume as highly as you do, I regard fighters such as Chocolatito, Estrada and a couple of others to have better resumes. Also for me Canelo should have at least one more loss on his record, possibly two, and I've never rated the current era of 168 pounders but to be fair that's not Canelo's fault.
Bob Fitzsimmons won the actual heavyweight championship whereas Roy Jones won a WBA belt when the actual heavyweight champion, Lennox Lewis, was still active.
Hmm, IF you truly "don't fkin care" you'd be calling out Fury as well. Methinks you jus wolfin and that's OK for marketing purposes.....but keepin it real you're not remotely competitive with Usyk. This ain't John Ruiz
Reckon he still want Usyk 🙄
If Canelo was "a man on a mission" at 175lbs there would be no Golovkin fight set up for September, instead there'd be a tentative plan to fight the winner of June's Beterbiev vs Smith unification. The Bivol fight wouldn't stop such a tentative plan being talked about - Canelo and Reynoso talked about similar plans when chasing the undisputed 168lb title.
I'm pretty confident that Canelo will beat Bivol and I give him a lot of credit for taking this fight as it's not what Reynoso and Canelo usually do when trying to beat champions in divisions above Canelo's current division.
Canelo & Reynoso waited until Golovkin was 36 before going anywhere near him at (full) 160lbs and at 175lbs they waited until Kovalev was 36 and spending more time in night clubs than the gym.
Although the Bivol fight is a brave move, a braver move would have been taking on Beterbiev when he's still strong at 37. The fact that the Bivol fight was taken instead and no immediate subsequent fight with Beterbiev even talked about imo suggests that Reynoso thinks Artur is still too formidable at the moment. Consequently I suspect there will be a delay in Canelo taking on Artur. The length of that delay will depend on how good/bad Beterbiev looks in his next fight or two - and as he's 38 next January, Reynoso knows that there has to be some sign of decline fairly soon.
Nothing you have written is particularly unreasonable but the flaw I see is that none of the people Canelo is accused of swerving (Charlo, Benavidez, Beterbiev) have particularly good resumes and/or standout wins themselves. Fans seem to apply this logic whereby anyone who stays undefeated by minimising risk whilst simultaneously calling out Canelo gets elevated into a killer. What’s Beterbiev done to make the Bivol fight? He’s fighting a guy (Smith) who lost to Bivol in his next fight.
Beterbiev and Smith can easily fight because they're on the "same side of the street" (Smith is co-promoted by Star & TR) and it unifies 3 of the belts however Beterbiev and Bivol are on "different sides of the street" being with Top Rank and Matchroom. It's an annoying reason for not making the fights that the fans want to see but unfortunately these promotional companies don't work together that often.
One of the reasons Canelo gave for forcing DAZN to free him from his contract was that he wanted to be free to challenge the best no matter what promotional outfit they were with. To be fair this is exactly what he did at 168lbs however this is not what he's done at 175lbs.
Canelo is a free agent and so could have approached Top Rank with a view to fighting the boxer regarded as the best light heavyweight champion - according to Arum no approach was made to fight Beterbiev only to fight Smith. Canelo and Reynoso decided to fight the fighter regarded as the second best light heavyweight champion - still a brave move however this is the second time Canelo has chosen to fight a light heavyweight champion other than Beterbiev - Artur being only 34 when Canelo fought Kovalev.
My view is not that Canelo is ducking fighters - Charlo and Benavidez have no chance against him - but that he's delaying fighting older, dangerous champions until they're no longer the dangers that they once were.
IMO if Canelo and Reynoso were as determined to become undisputed at 175lbs as they were for 168lbs, no September opponent would have been slated and there would be the possibility of facing the Beterbiev vs Smith winner, most likely Beterbiev, in Nov/Dec.
The Golovkin fight probably means Beterbiev will be at least 38 before any fight with Canelo is made.
37 or 38 - some would say they waited for him to get old regardless. Again, nothing you have said is particularly unreasonable, but you’ve kept all the onus on Canelo here where Beterbiev seems to get a free pass for allowing his career to unfold passively.
When Canelo’s people approached Arum to fight Smith they wouldn’t talk about a fight with Beterbiev according to Arum and so Top Rank haven’t been totally passive on Beterbiev’s behalf.
They couldn’t force Canelo to fight Beterbiev. Team Canelo clearly had a plan and it didn’t involve fighting Beterbiev straight away - Artur has to wait until Canelo decides it’s time to fight.
As Canelo is a free agent and seems to be allowed to do just about anything he wants by the sanctioning bodies - he doesn’t seem to have to deal with mandatories at 168lbs - he gets away with these delaying tactics and there’s nothing Top Rank can do about it on Beterbiev’s behalf.
Beterbiev has individual agency like anyone else, he doesn’t have to wait for Top Rank to do everything for him. Plus, Arum’s relationship with the truth is often tenuous so I wouldn’t be prepared to rely on that as objective verification of much. I think we’ve progressed this discussion as far as we can. I accept part of your critique of Canelo’s opponent selection but he still has the best resume compared with any other active boxer and, with the possible exception of Terence Crawford, is doing more to take ownership of his career than anyone else. Beterbiev could have been “undisputed” (I don’t like that term but it’s a separate discussion) by now if he’d demanded it. He hasn’t and thus has left belts to be picked up by other people in “his” division.
Canelo's earning power allowed him to become a free agent, other fighters don't have that luxury, nor the freedom of being able to ignore mandatories for that matter. Fights with other belt holders who are with other promotional companies cannot just be demanded or called out - as Terence Crawford has found over the past 4 or 5 years.
Canelo now has the freedom and power to make fights whenever he wants - if he wants he can delay fights until an opponent has declined a bit further and he can dabble in other divisions picking up world titles without having to think about his mandatory commitments as a champion and there's nothing any other fighter or any promotional company can do about it as the sanctioning bodies usually allow him to do what he likes.
This is too much power for any one fighter to have no matter how good they are - especially if they choose to use this power in the way that Mayweather (@ 147/154) and Canelo have. This isn't taking ownership of their careers this is taking ownership of boxing itself and imo it's totally wrong.
Finally, I can't rate Canelo's resume as highly as you do, I regard fighters such as Chocolatito, Estrada and a couple of others to have better resumes. Also for me Canelo should have at least one more loss on his record, possibly two, and I've never rated the current era of 168 pounders but to be fair that's not Canelo's fault.
Bob Fitzsimmons won the actual heavyweight championship whereas Roy Jones won a WBA belt when the actual heavyweight champion, Lennox Lewis, was still active.
I am aware. That is why I wrote "a heavyweight title." If Canelo does still massively impressive.