It was a tough loss for Saul "Canelo" Alvarez against Floyd Mayweather, but that won't keep him from emerging as the next potential superstar in the sport of boxing.
Mayweather was in control of the fight from the beginning and came away with the win to put him at 45-0 over his career. Meanwhile, Canelo took the first loss of his career, falling to 42-1-1 at just 23 years old.
It was a controversial scoring to end the night on a strange note as well. Many felt like it was a unanimous victory for Mayweather, but judge C.J. Ross scored the fight as a draw at 114-114.
In a video interview via ESPN, Mayweather described the ruling as "a joke."
In the video, Mayweather also speaks quite highly of Canelo, saying:
Canelo still is the future of boxing. The only thing [he has] to do is wait [his] turn. But this opportunity presented itself, and he took full advantage of the opportunity. He went out there and he fought his heart out.
Coming from the greatest boxer in the world, that's pretty high praise.
Mayweather certainly has a point, however. This was just the first loss for Canelo, and he's taken down anyone else in his path. He's had 30 career knockouts and defeated the likes of Austin Trout and Shane Mosley.
What truly impresses me from the fight was Canelo's relentlessness, even after being demoralized. In the fourth round, there was some obvious bruising forming around his left eye. Rather than back off, Canelo kept up the tempo and kept trying to land big shots on Mayweather.
The biggest thing for me was how Canelo came back from the seventh round. He got hit very nicely by an uppercut from Mayweather in the seventh, and then started getting picked apart with some very big blows. It looked like Canelo was dazed out there and that he was close to possibly falling.
Instead of accepting defeat, Alvarez came out and arguably had his best round of the night. He stayed close and inside of Mayweather and was able to land some nice shots throughout the round.
The fight is a good sign for Canelo's future—even with the loss. He gained a ton of exposure by fighting Mayweather. According to a report by Kevin Iole from Yahoo Sports, the fight was projected to break the all-time pay-per-view sales of 2.5 million.
The exposure will be huge, and everyone saw that Canelo is a tough fighter. He's still young, and if he continues to develop and get better, there's no doubt that he could be one of the best fighters in the world in the future.
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