Britain’s John Ryder put in a brave effort in coming up short against Saul Alvarez on Saturday night in a bid for the Mexican’s IBF, WBA, WBC, and WBO crowns in Guadalajara. Alvarez won a unanimous decision after scoring with knockdowns as well as bloodying the nose of the challenger. However, there have been opinions since stating that Alvarez may now seem to be past his best. Not really a view that I endorse.
During the post fight press conference it was clear to see that Saul’s main focus is on Dmitry Bivol after losing to him last year on all three score cards. That fight was for the Tokmok’s WBA light-heavyweight title. It would not surprise me if Canelo was looking past Ryder in order to eagerly avenge that second loss on his record, the first being to Floyd Mayweather. Although Ryder was the mandatory challenger for the WBO title, all the belts were put on the line on Saturday. But that does not change the fact that it was still just an ordinary mandatory defence. And after having been in the ring with many boxers who were way above Ryder’s level, it must have been hard for Saul to muster up the motivation for that fight. Especially when there is an above average chance that he will eventually be facing Bivol again.
Alvarez clearly dominated Ryder. He did not put him away but John has only been stopped once in his six losses. If we compare the performance of Saul Alvarez to Anthony Joshua’s when he fought Jermaine Franklin then it was blatantly obvious that, although Joshua dominated his opponent, he looked flat and a different fighter compared to the one who was knocking people out prior to 2019 when he came unstuck against Andy Ruiz. To me, it looked as if Alvarez knew what he had to do but wasn’t extremely passionate in wanting to do it.
Sometimes that happens.
