Liam Smith looks to conquer America with Canelo Alvarez clash

Liam Smith is bidding to become a big name in America when he defends his WBO light-middleweight title against Saul Canelo Alvarez at the AT&T Stadium in Dallas, Texas in September in front of what could be an 80,000 crowd for their clash.

Canelo is one of the biggest stars in boxing and has a huge following not just in his native Mexico but also throughout the United States. The former world middleweight champion is stepping down a division since his last bout against Amir Khan, however, that middleweight contest was fought at a catchweight of 155lbs so the Mexican is only dropping a pound to make the fight against the WBO champion.

Smith is one of four brothers who all fight professionally but is the only one, at the time of writing, to have become a world champion. He picked up his world title by stopping American John Thompson in the seventh round last year and has since made two successful defences with stoppages against Jimmy Kelly and Predrag Radosevic. The Liverpudlian is 13-2 in the boxing betting for the fight, at the time of writing, so he goes into the contest as the underdog despite being the holder of the WBO light-middleweight belt which will be on the line.

Promoter Frank Warren has struggled to secure Smith unification fight with WBA super champion Erislandy Lara or the Charlo twins who hold the WBC and IBF belts in the division as neither of those three boxers were keen on taking on the WBO holder.

Domestic fights with Khan or Kell Brook were being talked about as possible next fights for the man from Liverpool, however, when the Alvarez fight became available it was too big of an opportunity for him to turn down against one of the best pound-for-pound boxers in the sport.

Alvarez is a former world champion himself. He won the WBC light-middleweight title against Britain’s Matthew Hatton in March, 2011. Six successful defences followed for the Mexican superstar before a convincing loss to Floyd Mayweather which ended his two-year run with the belt.

“Floyd Mayweather” (CC BY-SA 2.0) by  SportsAngle.com 

Canelo bounced back from the crushing Mayweather loss by stepping up to the middleweight division. He was rewarded for that decision when he beat Miguel Cotto for the WBC middleweight title last year to make him a two-weight world champion.  He successfully defended his green belt against Khan at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas back in May but was then forced to vacate his title by the WBC after he failed to agree a fight against the mandatory challenger Gennady Golovkin.

If successful against Smith and Golovkin gets past Brook in their showdown at O2 Arena in London later this year, the pair could still meet for that WBC belt in 2017 in what would be one of the biggest bouts in boxing for a long time. That contest would likely to have to be at 160lbs as Golovkin’s team are not keen on agreeing on a lower catchweight for the fight.