The continued glut of boxing crossover bouts doesn’t seem to have whetted Canelo Alvarez’s appetite.
Alvarez, the undisputed 168-pound champion, has been repeatedly asked about entertaining fights with the likes of MMA star Kamaru Usman or YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul, but his response has been to avoid them more than anything else.
Alvarez apparently hasn’t changed his mind, even with Usman’s recent shock knockout loss to Leon Edwards at UFC 278. Edwards stopped Usman with a left leg kick in the fifth round.
Alvarez and Usman exchanged some heated words in early April, with Alvarez telling the UFC welterweight champion to “sit down, it’s not your turn yet, I’ve got a legacy to make.”
When asked to respond to Usman’s loss recently, Alvarez refrained from criticizing this adversary online, even if he was no longer required to face the Nigerian-American in a crossover bout anytime soon.
“This happens,” Alvarez said of Usman’s knockout loss in an interview with FightHype.com. “ [It’s] part of the sport. Everyone can lose. you never know I think he was winning, right? One blow changed everything. Look, he is a great fighter.”
Alvarez insists he wants to continue breaking boxing milestones before even considering getting involved in more bizarre, albeit lucrative, matchups.
“I don’t know,” Alvarez said of the crossover bouts. “Not now. I want to have big fights and make boxing history and maybe when I’m done with boxing maybe I can do that kind of fight.”
Alvarez is focused on resolving his rivalry with Gennadiy Golovkin in their fight for the undisputed 168-pound title on September 17 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The Mexican superstar is coming off a points loss to Dmitry Bivol in their light heavyweight title fight in May at T-Mobile Arena.
