Canelo will fight for his legacy against boxing's boogeyman, and that's just what the sport needs

There was a somber mood in Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena after Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez effortlessly defeated Julio Cesar Chavez Jr – the descendant of Mexico’s greatest prize fighter – on Sunday afternoon.

Dozens of the 20,510 paying customers who forked over money to witness the ‘battle for national pride’ up close began shuffling out of the arena with a few rounds left in the bout. A small yet noticeable group of fans stuck around merely to chant “refund” at Golden Boy promoter Oscar De La Hoya.

The discouraged onlookers were promised another chapter in the already expansive book of Mexican boxing rivalries but instead witnessed Canelo versus a heavy bag with shorts and gloves.

Ticket buyers felt cheated, as did pay-per-view consumers – many of whom paid the hefty $70 price tag – for a complete sham of a fight.

Alvarez, the 26-year-old redhead with a near perfect professional record of 49-1-1, turned the crowd’s frustration into elation following the fight, however, with the revelation that he will challenge unified middleweight world champion Gennady Golovkin in September.

“Triple G, you are next, my friend. The fight is done,” Alvarez said with the help of his translator.

“I’ve never feared anyone, since I was 16 fighting as a professional. When I was born, fear was gone.”

Like the scene out of a perfectly-crafted WWE storyline, the arena dissolved into darkness. A light show flickered through the building, while a video showed Golovkin tearing through the middleweight division like foreign water through a tourist.

Golovkin then emerged from the backstage area to the thumping sound of The White Stripes and walked to the ring to confront the fighter who, according to most boxing critics, has avoided him like the plague for over two years.

Unbeknownst to the public, Golden Boy and K2 promotions, who represent Golovkin, came to an agreement for the bout during the week. The Kazakhstani king will put his WBC, IBF, and WBA titles on the line while Canelo will put his RING magazine championship up for grabs.

(AP Photo/John Locher)

The middleweight mega-fight announcement is another step in the right direction for ‘the sweet science’. For the longest time, it has been hard to be a boxing fan.

Gone were the days of larger-than-life titans clashing in heroic bouts that old-timers would tell their grandkids about. In its place was a broken, corrupt sport where promoters shielded their top stars, cherry picking the easiest bouts, legacies be damned.

Alvarez was accused of this for a long time. De La Hoya, the former six-division world champion turned promoter, has moulded the burgeoning young star in his vision as a silent assassin who is charming outside of the ring and violent inside it.

The 44-year-old mouthpiece has reportedly guided Alvarez away from fights in the past, most notably last May when Team Canelo decided to abandon the WBC middleweight title rather than face Golovkin, who was the mandated number-one contender.

Instead of facing boxing’s boogeyman, Alvarez instead took a much easier fight against Liam Smith and still had an incredibly successful night, delivering a $5 million gate and convincing about 300,000 pay-per-view customers to part with their money for the B-level fight.

The fact Alvarez’s star power can generate millions to fight almost anybody is reason enough to continue milking the cow but, to their credit, Golden Boy has decided to take the fight that will for better or worse help define Canelo’s legacy.

In the biggest fight of his career to date, a young Canelo was soundly defeated by pound-for-pound and box office king Floyd Mayweather Jr.

The battle-tested Mexican fighter can begin to erase that loss from the minds of fans in September if he can collect the biggest scalp of his career.

Of course, if he gets added to Golovkin’s long list of knockout victims, then he will be painted as a protected species, who fell short each time he faced the cream of the crop.