A former rival of Canelo Alvarez has rated the Mexican icon’s power ahead of his huge fight with Terence Crawford.
As he approaches what appears to be the twilight of his professional career, Canelo has set his sights on securing another legacy-defining victory, having already defeated the likes of Gennady Golovkin, Sergey Kovalev and Miguel Cotto amongst others.
Another fighter that fell short to the Mexican great is former WBO world super welterweight champion Liam Smith, who was stopped in the ninth round of his showdown with Canelo at the AT&T Stadium in Texas back in September 2016.
Speaking to First Round TV, Smith said that despite the early finish he answers ‘no’ when people ask if Canelo punches hard, believing that it was a change of gameplan on his part that lead to the Mexican’s finish.
“Okay, that’s a question the average man asks me on the street, ‘You fought Canelo, wow, does he punch hard?’ and I’m like no. Going into round seven, you’re feeling this now, because he’s threw everything at me and hasn’t budged me. Right, going to put my foot to the pedal and then round seven, boom, dropped me.”
Smith was dropped with a thunderous left hook to the body in round nine of his clash with Canelo, which would ultimately be the final act of his third WBO world title defence and the first defeat of his professional career.
Alvarez would go on to move up to middleweight shortly after he defeated Smith, facing former rival Gennady Golovkin in the first fight of their memorable trilogy in September of 2017. He has not secured a stoppage win since 2021 against Caleb Plant.
