{"id":390519,"date":"2025-09-02T00:08:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T00:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/390519\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T00:08:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T00:08:12","slug":"canelo-alvarez-couldve-faced-an-all-time-great-in-a-dream-matchup-that-never-happened-for-his-first-world-title-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/390519\/","title":{"rendered":"Canelo Alvarez could’ve faced an all-time great in a dream matchup that never happened for his first world title fight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Canelo Alvarez has faced off with some legendary opponents but there is one that got away from him.<\/strong><\/p>\n

While Alvarez may have turned down a fight with Terence Crawford<\/a> in the past, the two men are set to lock horns later this month at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

Both men are certainly no strangers to competing under the brightest lights with the eyes of the world on them.<\/p>\n

While Alvarez<\/a> would face the likes of Floyd Mayweather, who Crawford believes is the greatest<\/a> of all time, there is one huge name that he hasn\u2019t had the opportunity to face even though their paths appeared to be aligning at one stage.<\/p>\n

\"CaneloPhoto by FAYEZ NURELDINE\/AFP via Getty ImagesCanelo Alvarez was lined up to face Manny Pacquiao in his first world title fight<\/p>\n

Heading into 2011, Canelo Alvarez was starting to target some of the elite fighters that were around him in the light middleweight division.<\/p>\n

He had successfully defended the WBC Silver belt on two occasions, making him the mandatory challenger for the winner of an upcoming vacant title fight.<\/p>\n

The prior November saw Manny Pacquiao<\/a> earn a world title in his eighth weight class after he convincingly beat Antonio Margarito over 12 rounds.<\/p>\n

This now meant that the next fight for the WBC light middleweight title would see Alvarez challenge Pacquiao for the belt in a huge clash, even though the Mexican star hadn\u2019t won a world title at that stage.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for the fans, \u2018PacMan\u2019 made it clear in a letter to the governing body that he had no intentions of putting his belt on the line, choosing to jump between weight classes again.<\/p>\n

As a result, Alvarez went on to fight for the vacant belt in March of 2011 where he dominated England\u2019s Matthew Hatton, the younger brother of Ricky Hatton, to win the title.<\/p>\n

\"CaneloPhoto by Steve Marcus\/Getty ImagesManny Pacquiao gave his prediction for Canelo Alvarez\u2019s fight with Terence Crawford<\/p>\n

Terence Crawford<\/a> also pursued a fight with Manny Pacquiao for several years, though once again, this dream matchup never materialized.<\/p>\n

The Filipino boxing legend did recently reveal his prediction for the upcoming fight between Canelo Alvarez and \u2018Bud\u2019, simply revealing who he thinks will take it when speaking to ESNews.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019ll [Canelo] win this fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are countless examples of huge boxing matches that got away from the fans but fortunately, Alvarez and Crawford won\u2019t be one of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canelo Alvarez has faced off with some legendary opponents but there is one that got away from him.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,4851,27372,79,22178,85266,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-390519","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-canelo-alvarez","10":"tag-manny-pacquiao","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-terence-crawford","13":"tag-throwbacks","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115131797122104126","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}