adminLAS VEGAS. – Canelo Alvarez once considered QUITTING boxing as he could not afford a car on his £35 fight purses . . . now he is the sport’s richest star.
The Mexican ring legend turned professional aged just 15 but was making tiny paydays at the start of his career.
Now almost 20 years on and Canelo is boxing’s prized asset and the biggest box office attraction.
The current undisputed super-middleweight champion’s journey began on the Juanacatlan streets as a nine-year-old.
Canelp would lace up the gloves and challenge all comers, inspired to box by his oldest brother Rigoberto.
In a DAZN documentary, he revealed: “I started boxing because of my oldest brother. I saw his professional debut.
“Since then, it’s like my eyes turned into gloved-shaped hearts. Since then, I said, ‘I want to be a boxer, I want to be a boxer.’
“Since then, I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Then he moved for two years to Tijuana, I would ask, ‘Please take me with you. I want to be a boxer like you.’
“But my dad wouldn’t let me go.”
Canelo, the youngest of seven brothers with three of them also fighters, was eventually given the green light to chase his boxing dreams at 13.
And it led him to Chepo Reynoso’s gym, which the trainer co-run with his son Eddy, with the pair coaching Canelo still till this day.
Canelo had 46 amateur bouts, losing just twice and winning national titles while also impressing against seasoned veterans in sparring.
Brother Gonzalo said: “I loved to see him training with world champion “Chatiti” Jauregui and he was just a 15-year-old boy.
“He would stand his ground and the world champion couldn’t dominate.”
Canelo turned pro in 2005 after just two years’ worth of experience and fought for little pay across Mexico.
It proved such hard work that the future fight icon was ready to prematurely hang up his gloves to earn money the normal way.
Gonzalo said: “There was a moment when he was considering quitting boxing, because, I remember, they paid him almost nothing when he started. “Sometimes they would pay him $40 and the rest in tickets for him to sell.
“If he’d sell them he would make a bit of money, if not, that was his problem.
“He wanted to buy a car so he’d say, ‘I’m going to look for a job.’ He was losing his patience.
“So, I told him, ‘Brother, you have something that almost nobody has, you’re a Mexican, redhead and very good at what you’re doing. I believe you’ll be world champion and you will make history.’”
Canelo’s life changed at 17 when he became a father to his eldest daughter Emily.
He said: “There were very complicated moments, when I couldn’t afford milk, diapers, or the bus fare to go to training. – The Sun
Mathew Masinge
Online Reporter