Mexican Saul Alvarez defended the title of absolute world boxing champion in super middleweight

Saul Alvarez, who not so long ago was considered the undisputed king of boxing but lost that status after last year’s loss to Dmitry Bivol, was finally able to show his former brilliance. Defending the title of absolute world champion in super middleweight (up to 76.2 kg), Alvarez won a very bright and convincing victory over another absolute champion – American Jermell Charlo, who moved to meet the Mexican from the category up to 69.9 kg. Alvarez only needed a knockout to be completely happy.

“I’m back,” said Saul Alvarez after the fight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, who actually never left and didn’t even take a break from his career. But this was precisely the case when the phrase did not require clarification.

In a sense, it was like a return – the “real”, familiar Alvarez, who, even at the end of the last decade, acquired a reputation as the main genius of boxing, its obvious king.

The gloss disappeared in an instant. The Mexican, who earned fame in the middle weight (up to 72.6 kg), then got used to performing in the super middleweight category, and then, believing that he could do anything with his abilities, decided to jump into the light heavyweight category (up to 79.4 kg). But if the 2019 experiment turned out to be successful (Alvarez knocked out Sergey Kovalev), then the 2022 experience resulted in a disaster. Another Russian – World Boxing Association (WBA) champion Dmitry Bivol – coped with the king as confidently as the king himself had previously dealt with opponents who came across his path, without paying attention to their reputation.

What happened after that almost screamed that Bivol, along with his royal status, deprived Saul Alvarez of motivation and fire. He remained the holder of the title of absolute world champion in super middleweight and won two fights – Gennady Golovkin and John Ryder. But he won them in a routine style, perhaps, without the former brilliance. In such a style that no one would probably be surprised if after some time Alvarez announced that he still felt tired of boxing and decided to leave.

But here arose a new fight – with a beautiful poster, against Jermell Charlo, another absolute world champion, who has also long been talked about as a boxer of extraordinary talent.

And Saul Alvarez, having received this chance to prove that he still had gunpowder, took advantage of it flawlessly. In fact, for complete happiness, he perhaps lacked a knockout, which he did without in the fights against Golovkin and Ryder. Saul Alvarez was close to him, especially in the 7th round, when another right shot over his opponent’s guard put Jermell Charlo on the canvas, forcing the referee to count the knockdown. It was all too clearly visible that Alvarez, who was investing in blows, was striving for just such an early end to the match. But it didn’t work out with him. But it blended in with everything else.

It is significant that none of the experts covering this boxing thought to focus on the fact that for the sake of a clash with the Mexican, Charlo stepped over the category, sacrificing even one of his four belts – the World Boxing Organization (WBO) – in the “native” category “: He got it representing Australia Tim Tszyu, the son of Russian boxing legend Konstantin Tszyu.

And the point was, apparently, not so much in the fact that, being from a lighter weight, Charlo was superior to Alvarez in height, but also in speed, that is, in that aspect in which a priori he was obliged to master at least microscopic advantage, clearly inferior to the opponent.

The advantage of Saul Alvarez is well illustrated by the number of hits on target for each of the opponents. The Mexican, according to CompuBox, has 134, the American – 71.

In terms of hits from power blows, the difference is even more significant: 78 to 31. But the highlight reel of the fight, no matter who cut it, speaks even more eloquently about it. A typical episode from it looks something like this: Alvarez pushed Charlo to the ropes, and Charlo, known for his aggressiveness and indomitability, instead of trying to go on a counterattack, already completely exhausted, humbly accepts blows from his opponent, sometimes lowering his hands down. They outplayed him, ran over him, interrupted him.

As a result of this fight, all three referees, of course, gave the victory to Saul Alvarez, who later recalled with pleasure the grueling, as in his youth, preparation for it on Lake Tahoe, with a gigantic margin: two – with a score of 118:109, the third – 119:108. And after this it will be strange if Alvarez, who seems to have waited for a second wind, does not decide on some really cool fight. Or with the American Terence Crawford, who replaced him as the king of boxing, a phenomenon from the up to 66.7 kg category, about whom the Mexican is most often asked, or – even better – with Dmitry Bivol. The plot of their rematch, which has been discussed many times and has not yet become a reality, still looks more attractive than any other.

Alexey Dospehov