The critics were on Canelo Alvarez's mind not long after he dispatched of Edgar Berlanga Saturday in their super middleweight title fight in the headliner of a pay-per-view card at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
He'd just vanquished one of the least-accomplished opponents on his resumé since he became a world champion. It was a bout in which he won 10 of the 12 rounds on two scorecards and nine of the 12 on the other, and scored a third-round knockdown with a vicious left hook. As he usually does after he each fight these days, he proclaimed himself the top fighter in the world and he went after the mythical 'they' whom so many athletes despise.
"I did good," Alvarez said. "Now what are they gonna say? They said I don't fight young fighters. They always talk, but I'm the best fighter in the world."
No one with more than a handful of boxing knowledge has criticized Alvarez's talent, or his career resumé. He's been criticized, though, for an increasingly long string of soft touches and Berlanga fit perfectly into that group. Alvarez was as high as a 20-1 favorite to win on Saturday and was an incredible 3-1 to win by knockout.
Berlanga brought a 22-0 mark with 17 knockouts to the dance, but that was built against a litany of tomato cans, particularly the 16 consecutive first-round knockouts he opened his career against.
Alvarez gave Berlanga a gift in choosing him as his opponent, and Berlanga not only got a career-high payday but built his name so that he'll be an attractive for others at or near the top of the division. Former super middleweight champion Caleb Plant, who stopped Trevor McCumby in the ninth on Saturday, would be a logical next opponent for Berlanga.
This, though, didn't feel right.
Alvarez charged an absurd $90 to view the pay-per-view. The cheapest ticket was $300 and the top ticket went for over $10,000.
Those are expensive by any measure, but Alvarez has clearly forgotten about those who support him most passionately by charging these astronomical amounts. It's one thing to ask for top dollar if he takes a super fight, but when he's facing a 20-1 favorite, it's gross and shows no respect for the fans who have made him rich and famous.
The attendance was announced as 20,312, but we'll never know how many paid to get in since the Nevada Athletic Commission a few years ago succumbed to intense lobbying from promoters and decided to no longer make ticket reports public. It's a government agency which is using public dollars for its funding, but where the money is coming from is suddenly no longer the public's interest, apparently.
Interesting.
Few expected Berlanga to make it to the finish line, as evidenced by the odds on him winning by KO, so give him his props. He took on an elite fighter, a future Hall of Famer, and he didn't embarrass himself. He fought hard and came to win, which is significantly more than can be said for the effort that Charlo gave in the same ring a year earlier.
This is not meant to dump on Berlanga. He is what is is, a solid but hardly spectacular fighter who had zero wins that justified getting a shot at the title.
Boxing should be a much more merit-based system than it is. And this is the time I like to tell the story of the fighter who was 34-0 in his career and 22-0 in world title fights and hasn't been able to sniff the International Boxing Hall of Fame. He made 21 consecutive successful title defenses and was the unified IBF-WBA champion for the last five of those.
Sven Ottke put up those gaudy numbers in a brief seven-year pro career which began on March 22, 1997, and ended on March 27, 2004. Ottke won the IBF super middleweight belt in his 13th pro fight and never lost it. But he didn't come close to ever fighting any of the other elite super middleweights of the time, notably Hall of Famer Joe Calzaghe.
He didn't face Mikkel Kessler or Jeff Lacy or even Bernard Hopkins, who was middleweight champion at the time.
Alvarez certainly has done far better than Ottke in terms of quality opponents, but he's getting into Ottke territory with these meaningless defenses.
He didn't want to talk about a potential bout with former undisputed welterweight champion Terence Crawford, who in August won a super welterweight belt. Crawford certainly would be a favorite to defeat Charlo if they fought, and there is a lot of interest in that bout from the fan base, but Alvarez barely will tolerate hearing Crawford's name.
Of course, the fight so many want to see is David Benavidez, who is 29-0 with 24 KOs and has wins in his last four bouts over David Lemieux, Plant, Demetrius Andrade and Oleksandr Gvozdyk. That's better competition in his last four than Alvarez's run of John Ryder, Charlo, Munguia and Berlanga.
Perhaps Alvarez, who lost a 2022 bid for a second light heavyweight title when he dropped a decision to Dmitry Bivol, can fight the Artur Beterbiev-Bivol winner next.
Boxing is better when the butterflies are going as a fight begins. Could Alvarez outbox Beterbiev? Sure. He's an elite boxer with rare ring IQ. But could he get knocked out by Beterbiev as the powerful Russian has done to so many others? Absolutely. That's what would make it compelling.
Hopefully, Alvarez will deign to fight someone who actually has a chance next time out.
All of a sudden, his choice of opponents is becoming a pattern, and it's a disturbing pattern, at that.
Rey Del Rio/PBC
Referee Harvey Dock raises Canelo Alvarez's hand after he scored a unanimous decision Saturday over Edgar Berlanga at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.