Canelo Alvarez has revealed he has a timeline for his retirement from boxing in place. The hard-hitting Mexican made his professional debut at the tender of age 15 after winning the Junior Nationals and being unable to fight opponents his age.
Fast forward nearly 15 years, and the fighting pride of Mexico can lay claim to being one of the best boxers his nation has ever produced.
World titles in four different weight classes have well and truly establish Alvarez as a Mexican great and future Hall-of-Famer.
Despite Alvarez just reaching his peak, one can’t help but wonder how much longer he’ll compete in the sport for.
Boxing is a cruel mistress and fighters who compete deep into their 30s seldom walk away from her without sustaining any serious damage.
Alvarez is seemingly aware of that fact and plans to call time on his career at the age of 36.
During an interview with Box Azteca, the current unified middleweight champion of the world said: “I always have discipline, work ethic, and dedication.
“The only thing that has changed are my successes, I train every day as if I was a rookie.
Boxing is my life. My body asks me to fight. I keep training because I love boxing, I train whether I have a fight or not.
“36-years-old – for me that’s a good time to retire, 37-years-old at the max.”
Alvarez was supposed to return to action on Cinco de Mayo weekend against WBO super-middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders.
The coronavirus outbreak, however, laid waste to the bout and has seemingly paved the way for a trilogy fight with Gennady Golovkin, which is said to be in the works for September.
Suggestions a third encounter with ‘GGG’ being in the pipeline have come as huge to surprise to the 29-year-old, who is adamant his next outing is not being planned.
Right now, everything is on standby,” he said. “There’s nothing going on, nothing discussed — not even about when the next fight is going to be – because of the situation.
“They say there won’t be any fights until after July, so we’re waiting, since everything is backtracked because of people who don’t follow or believe in rules.”
He added: “I don’t really know what’s next. Everything is shut down, so I don’t know.
“We had a good plan for 2020, but unfortunately this happened.
We had really big plans, and hopefully in July or a month afterward, we’ll see positive results with this situation. We’ll see what happens.”
Although he’s unsure what the future holds for him, Alvarez is eyeing a September return to the ring.
“In my mind, I’m fighting in September,” he said. “Hopefully all of this will pass and that date will still be possible.”
