Oscar De La Hoya had stood by his comments on Canelo Alvarez’ place amongst the greatest Mexican fighters of all time.
Following Canelo’s win over John Ryder last weekend, his former promoter De La Hoya took to social media and stated ‘nobody will ever be Julio Cesar Chavez,’ after some fans online were calling Alvarez the greatest Mexican fighter of all time.
When pressed on his tweet by FightHype, De La Hoya doubled down, and challenged anyone who disagreed to “say it to his face.”
“If somebody’s going to tell me that there’s someone better than Julio Cesar Chavez, say it to my face!”
Although Alvarez’ status as pound for pound king may have wobbled slightly over the past twelve months, the jaw dropping scenes at the Akron Stadium proved he is still as revered as ever by his fellow Mexicans.
55,000 people turned out in Guadalajara to witness Canelo retain his undisputed super middleweight crown with a win over the tough and game Ryder.
Despite his best efforts to score a knockout in front of his adoring public, Canelo could not budge the Brit who survived an early broken nose and a heavy fifth round knockdown to take the fight to the judges’ scorecards.
Although he did not do enough to win a great deal of the rounds, ‘The Gorilla’ was competitive the whole way through, and was described by Canelo in the aftermath of the contest as being the toughest test of any of the eight Brits to share a ring with him.
Canelo will now look to finalise the details of a rematch with old foe Dmitriy Bivol, to whom he suffered his first defeat in almost ten years last May.