Saul ‘Canelo‘ Alvarez is 65 fights deep into his boxing campaign.
Along the way, the Mexican has picked up world titles in four weight classes and become the biggest star in the sport, beating the likes of Gennady Golovkin, Miguel Cotto, Shane Mosley, Danny Jacobs and Sergey Kovalev.
In an interview with Million Dollaz Worth of Game, Canelo identified Golovkin as his hardest fight – the pair featured in a bruising trilogy with a controversial split draw in the first before the Mexican took the following two victories – but named Floyd Mayweather as his ‘most difficult.’
“I have a lot of them, but my most difficult fight was with Floyd Mayweather. Hardest fight? It’s with Golovkin, yeah.”
Canelo was just 23-years-old when he faced Mayweather at a catchweight of 152 pounds. Recognised by many as a future ruler, he wasn’t able to force a changing of the guard at that time with the American – who would retire undefeated – winning a majority decision. He is just one of two men to beat Alvarez, the other being Dmitry Bivol in a more recent jump up to light-heavyweight.
Despite the wars with Golovkin, Canelo says he has still been hit harder.
“Everybody can say Golovkin but I never feel that bad. Kirkland. He hit my arms and it felt like rocks. I said you know I need to finish that guy right now.”
Kirkland was dispatched of in three rounds.Canelo returns to the ring to defend his unified super-middleweight titles against undefeated contender Edgar Berlanga on September 14.
