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The late Marvelous Marvin Hagler once said “it’s tough to get out of bed to do roadwork at 5 am when you’ve been sleeping in silk pajamas.” For most human beings, the rigors associated with boxing are only fathomable as a desperate escape from circumstances. If you’re already rich, why would you go through this day after day?
This has been the situation for Canelo Alvarez for quite some time. Alvarez long ago made his first million dollar purse, and quickly multiplied those numbers before landing a nine-figure deal with DAZN. According to Celebrity Net Worth, he’s now worth over $140 million. He’s also quite literally a silk pajama connoisseur, wearing an expanding designer collection of them to press conferences, on private jets and everywhere in between.
What’s different about Canelo’s situation now is that he is also the consensus best fighter in the world, one without a clear rival to chase anymore. In the past there was Floyd Mayweather, Miguel Cotto, Gennady Golovkin, even Sergey Kovalev, signpost fights and opponents that would help illuminate Canelo’s true ability. But there are no questions left. He’s the pound-for-pound king, and in his immediate weight neighborhood, has precious few interesting challengers on the horizon.
In 2021 it’s not novel to see athletes with $100 million in the bank. Some of them aren’t even all-time greats. They’re mostly athletes in team sports where the chase for another championship is an annually replenishing goal. Boxing has no shortage of trinkets to chase, but the ultimate goal is to be called the absolute best in the world, a title Canelo currently holds. His place among the greatest Mexican fighters of all-time is solidified, and if you can define an era post-Mayweather and Pacquiao, Canelo will be regarded as the best of his era in all likelihood as well.
One of the markers of all-time greats is the ability to cultivate motivation. Finding something that can make you work as hard as you did before you’d achieved your goals. Heading into Saturday’s bout against Caleb Plant, Canelo has found it in the form of personal animosity, something he’s had to dabble in recently. As the biggest star in the sport, opponents have mostly taken a tone somewhere between deferential and reverential in speaking about him leading up to their bouts. And perhaps for good reason. Canelo can choose to fight whomever he pleases, and has the ability to bestow a life-changing paycheck upon people.
Last time out, Billy Joe Saunders played the role of persistent agitator, hounding Canelo during fight week and pulling theatrical stunts in the guise of “mind games.” Though Canelo said before the fight that he “(couldn’t) stand him,” he mostly acted like a big dog being pestered by a puppy, dismissing and rolling his eyes at Saunders’ antics.
Inside the ring, we’d already seen Canelo transform to a meaner version of himself. Canelo has always been a counter puncher with emphasis on the puncher, but the version of Canelo at 168 and briefly at 175 has been even more power-centric. Against Saunders, he was particularly sinister. When he landed the picturesque right uppercut that has been turned into portraits and t-shirts and enamel pins that immediately broke Saunders’ orbital bone, he relished the moment. He gestured to the crowd and signaled that the end of the night was near like a pro wrestler might before their finishing maneuver.
At the press conference following his TKO win, Canelo was interrupted by Demetrius Andrade, whom he told to “get the f—k out of here” and mocked him yelling “payday, payday.” Seemingly in that moment, the now-comfortably bilingual Canelo embraced being mean. He’d embraced the idea of finding personal enemies where true threats may or may not be, and animosity towards the fighters trying to siphon money off of his fame.
In Caleb Plant, he has found the perfect foil. A brash, confident young titleholder, Plant was instantly comfortable assuming the role of agitator as Saunders did. At the introductory press conference to announce the bout, Plant took a swipe at Canelo and unfortunately got the worst of the exchange. Canelo alleged that Plant had “said something about his mother,” which was later discovered to be Plant using the term “motherf—er.”
Even after it was pointed out that there was something lost in translation, it didn’t matter. Canelo had found his hook, both for motivating himself and also selling the fight.
“With all of the talk, it’s become personal. He crossed a line. But I have to remain focused, because this is a very important fight for me,” said Canelo on a media conference call last week. “Everyone knows what I’m going to do in the ring. When something is personal with me, it’s different. I have something special in my mind and I’m going to make it a great night for us.”
Canelo no longer has to reach for any crown, though adding Plant’s IBF super middleweight title to his stash would be nice. The question is no longer whether Canelo can beat a certain fighter, it’s whether anyone can beat him. And since the answer to that, at least in the short term, appears to “probably not” in the eyes of oddsmakers and fans, he now had to find meaning in the annoyance that someone would dare try.
Make them miss, and make them pay.
Corey Erdman is a boxing writer and commentator based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Follow him on Twitter @corey_erdman