LAS VEGAS — There had been more than whispers that Saul “Canelo” Alvarez was well past his prime.
He put such talk to rest — for now at least — on Saturday night.
“Nobody can beat this Canelo,” Alvarez said after he thoroughly dominated Jermell Charlo to retain his unified super middleweight championship.
Alvarez (60-2-2) won by scores of 119-108, 118-109 and 118-109. The statistics were just as one-sided. Alvarez landed 42 punches to Charlo’s 11, almost all power punches for both boxers.
Charlo, the unified junior middleweight champ, moved up two weight classes to take on Alvarez.
“I just felt like I wasn’t me in there,” Charlo said. “I don’t make excuses for myself, so it is what it is. I take my punches and roll with it.”
Even though Charlo (35-2-1) was the one moving up, he is 4 inches taller than the 5-foot-8 Alvarez and with a 2 1/2-inch reach advantage. That didn’t matter as Alvarez promised before the fight, saying his experience would prevail in the battle of 33-year-olds.
Now Charlo is ready to step back, saying he would love to take on 40-0 Terence Crawford, the reigning welterweight and super welterweight champion.
“I’ll move back to 154 (pounds),” Charlo said. “This morning, I weighed like 172 or 173 pounds. I’ll grandfather myself into this. I’m proud of myself. He didn’t knock me out. He knocked all them other guys out. He hit me with some hard shots. I thought I got mine off.”
Entering this fight, Alvarez lost by unanimous decision to Dmitry Bivol in May 2022, won by unanimous decision a year ago over past-his-prime Gennady Golovkin and then easily beat John Ryder in May on the scorecards.
His performance against Charlo figured to be a measuring stick on whether Alvarez could recreate some of his previous magic. There’s no doubt now that he can, but the question is whether the Mexican-born fighter can sustain it.