In his own words, Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez outlines his plan for the future and says that sometimes “defeats are good things”
AFTER another great victory in my career, I will take my time to decide what is next. My body needs to rest. Last year I fought four times in 11 months and now I need to take a little time. I’ll be back maybe in May or September, I don’t know.
I will not stop training completely, but I will do light training until my hand and body are fully recovered. We’ll take it from there and see how long it takes my body to recover.
My hands hurt right now. I have had the same problem since the Caleb Plant fight and it started to get much worse during the fight. I need surgery. It’s not torn, no, but it’s a meniscus injury. It’s my doll. (A TFCCT tear in a piece of cartilage in the wrist that affects the body’s ability to move that joint without impingement or sharp pain.)
Towards the end of the fight I started to get a bit fatigued and that’s because we haven’t been able to train explosively in the gym. But despite all the problems we had, I was very happy with my performance.
I don’t hear the scores at the end of the fight. I just heard “And still champion”. That is all. I respect the judges and how they saw it, and that’s fine. I’m fine with that. A victory is a victory and it is very satisfying to win this fight. He obviously wanted to get that KO but it didn’t come because Gennadiy Golovkin is a great fighter. That’s why there are 12 rounds in a fight, so you can prove who is the best. That is what I did and I am very happy with what I did. With my problems in hand, I still out jabbed the best jabber in the world in Gennadiy Golovkin.
I respect him as a fighter. As a person, I don’t know. But I consider myself a good person and I told him: “I am happy to share the ring with you. We gave people three good fights. These fights will go down in boxing history.”
Everybody, when they look at me from outside the ring, think they can beat me, but very few people can beat me in the ring. It’s hard to beat me. What I felt was that Golovkin didn’t throw his right hand because he maybe felt that he was going to counter it. Maybe that’s why he only threw his left hand. It was very difficult to hit him too, because he protects everything.
I didn’t feel like I lost track of where I was going (after a loss in May against Dmitry Bivol). Losses are good things sometimes because you learn how to come back and you learn what not to do in terms of wanting to get better. I think it was very important to me. As a man I had to accept it. I saw the changes I had to make. This is life.
A lot of things happen in your personal life, things that are difficult and you have to deal with them, but, at the end of the day, it’s about having a strong mind and always knowing why you’re moving forward. People may not see the sacrifices you’ve made, and that’s fine, but a lot of things happen to a person and you have to try to manage them to be 100% prepared. Because if you’re not prepared, it doesn’t feel right. Ultimately for this fight I did things the right way and the result was achieved.
It is very important to be the best boxer in the world. It is important for my country and also for me personally. This is one of the biggest wins of my career and I am delighted with it. Now I will continue making history.
When I say I don’t want to fight a Mexican, it’s because I’m 100 percent Mexican. But I don’t care. All my life I’ve been someone who will fight anyone. Do you think I don’t want to fight a Mexican? I hear David Benavidez’s father talk a lot of nonsense, but he looks at what he’s accomplished. Any. He beat only one champion in Anthony Dirrell. Please. Do not irrespect me. I’ve faced the best and never dodged anyone.
