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When you are the boxing’s cash cow, as Canelo Alvarez currently is, you can be sure that there will be no shortage of heel-nipping opponents longing for a payday.
Enter Kamaru Usman.
The Nigerian-American mixed martial artist, who holds the UFC’s welterweight title, has recently been busy calling out the Mexican superstar to a showdown. It’s the latest crossover bout proposal to enter the combat sports discourse, featuring an MMA fighter looking to make a career payday against a household boxing name.
In a recent interview, Usman’s manager, Ali Abdelaziz, offered his two cents on the match-up. Not surprisingly, he was confident that his charge would beat Alvarez. But Abdelaziz went even further, suggesting Usman, a wrestler by trade, would lay a beatdown on Alvarez, the undisputed 168-pound champion.
“Kamaru will knock him out in three rounds,” Abdelaziz told MMA Junkie. “You cannot say no to Kamaru. He’s a guy who comes from Africa. He jumped a lot of obstacles. I believe in Kamaru. This is the difference between me and other people. I believe in him, I live with him, I breathe with him, I die with him, I fight with him. He’s a special person in my life.
“How many street fights have me and Kamaru been to? We’ve been in a lot of street fights, and I have to believe in him. I believe Kamaru can beat any man alive.”
Crossover bouts have generated large, mainstream appeal in recent years, thanks to the blockbuster bout between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and UFC’s Conor McGregor in 2017, which ended up becoming the second highest grossing pay-per-view fight of all time. Recently, there was some noise about UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou facing boxing heavyweight titlist Tyson Fury at some point next year.
When asked about fighting Usman, Alvarez expressed some interest, saying “why not?”
Abdelaziz said Usman would make a bout with Alvarez into a “street fight.”
“[Usman] said I’m the pound-for-pound king in MMA, I want to fight the pound-for-pound coward in boxing because I think all these boxers are cowards because none of them want to come to MMA,” Abdelaziz said. “They all want to come to boxing, but at the end of the day, in a street fight, who’s the baddest man on the planet?
“They cannot quote Canelo as the baddest man on the planet. They cannot quote Canelo the pound-for-pound best boxer because if they both in the street, who’s gonna win? Kamaru would beat his ass like he stole something.”
Abdelaziz said Usman wants to fight Canelo later this year, but that does not seem probable, given that Alvarez signed a two-fight deal with Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing to face light heavyweight titleholder Dmitry Bivol on May 7 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas and Gennadiy Golovkin in a trilogy in September. It has also been reported that Alvarez may fight a third time, in December, potentially against 168-pound contender John Ryder or cruiserweight titlist Ilunga Makabu.
“At the end of the day, this is what he (Usman) wants. He wants to fight Canelo in September. This a different conversation. First he gotta defend his title in July, and the greatest promoter of all time, [UFC president] Mr. Dana White has to [put] his stamp on it.”
The 34-year-old Usman (20-1 MMA, 15-0 UFC) is recovering from surgery on an injured hand. He plans to return this summer to fight Leon Edwards.
The 31-year-old Alvarez (57-1-2, 39 KOs) will move up from 168 pounds to fight Bivol for Bivol’s WBA light heavyweight title. Alvarez previously won a belt at light heavyweight when he stopped WBO titlist Sergey Kovalev in the 11th round of their title bout in 2019; Alvarez, however, vacated that belt in order to focus on unifying the 168-pound, which he did when he knocked out Caleb Plant last November.