Canelo Alvarez has withdrawn from his scheduled December 6th fight, tentatively slated to be against Joshua Clottey as he returned to the HBO airwaves after signing a new long-term deal with the network.
Officially, it’s because Canelo’s team has revealed that the fighter has been dealing with a “persistent ankle injury.” That’s a fairly vague, Bill Belichick style injury reference. There could certainly be something else at work. Unofficially, it could be because Canelo and HBO realized the backlash against an awful Canelo vs. Clottey match-up would all but ruin the superstar’s return to HBO Boxing.
In the official statement from Golden Boy and Canelo, they said, “He thanks his fans for their support and looks forward to big things in 2015 on HBO.” One has to wonder if those “big things” are that Canelo is planning to return straight against Miguel Cotto, in what would be a mammoth fight for the true Middleweight Championship of the world.
Canelo vs. Cotto has already been in the works, but Canelo was planning on fighting Clottey first. Because nobody wanted to jeopardize the fight from coming to fruition, he was getting a soft touch. But as mentioned, the backlash was already severe.
We’ll have to see what develops, and if any announcements are made in the coming weeks. In the meantime, hopefully a more competitive fight gets slotted in for December 6th on HBO, and fight fans can look forward to Canelo vs. Cotto in 2015.
