After all the fuss over Conor McGregor vs Floyd Mayweather, it appears that another boxer wants to exchange in a war of words with the UFC featherweight champion.
In the aftermath of UFC 196, Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez expressed his belief that Nate Diaz didn't beat Conor McGregor, but rather the Dubliner beat himself. Since then they have exchanged the occasional barb in the media with Conor calling into question the standard of the Mexican boxer's opponents.
Speaking to the LA Times, McGregor mentioned Canelo while explaining that boxers never look to challenge themselves by looking at other divisions the way he is currently doing in the UFC.
If you look at the history of the fight game, especially in this new era, it’s full of stars cherry picking their opponents. When they hold a position of power, when they get a name, all of a sudden they pick weaker opponents. They look down their division. Nobody looks up a division. Nobody looks at true challenges.
When you look at this Canelo situation, It’s an era of cherry picking.
It’s not like that with me. I’m here to challenge myself. I’m training to go up two divisions, and it’s going to be a great fight.
While he was absolutely spot on about the fight being great, Alvarez took exception to this and reportedly didn't take the question too well.
Canelo got a bit fired up when told @TheNotoriousMMA referred to him as cherry picker. He chimed back Conor "gasses out after two rounds."
— Lance Pugmire (@latimespugmire) August 24, 2016
Canelo predicted a third-round finish for McGregor's opponent, and was even seen wearing a Nate Diaz t-shirt, in the build-up to UFC 202, so it's clear that he is not a fan of Conor taking aim at the sport of boxing on more than one occasion.
Speaking to Balls.ie recently on Episode 1 of The Balls.ie MMA Show, professional boxer Chris Van Heerden admitted that he was impressed with McGregor's skills in the boxing ring, but had a lot of work to do if he wanted to fight a professional, let alone someone of the standard of Mayweather or Canelo (even though admittedly there is almost no chance of that happening).
I was pretty impressed, it has to be said. Conor can hold his own. I didn't know that Conor had an amateur boxing background in Ireland. I could immediately see that Conor has some boxing skill inside of him. Conor showed that he needs work in the boxing because of the MMA background. The main thing I would say is his balance and his footwook wasn't up to date. It was pretty good, but it needed work. Like I said, I was impressed over the first day that he could hold his own.
McGregor vs boxing, it keeps rearing it's head.
While we're fully expecting Conor's next fight to be against either Jose Aldo or Eddie Alvarez with a UFC title on the line, the man himself may have different ideas and his "shit is about to hit the fan" comments at the end of his interview after UFC 202 certainly suggest he wants to do something big.
[via BloodyElbow.com]
