Rocky prepares to face one of the sport’s superstars
Elliot Worsell reveals the problems and opportunities that lie ahead for Fielding when he takes on Canelo Alvarez in New York
THANKS TO THE WBA ‘REGULAR’ BELT, THIS IS A TUNE-UP FIGHT DRESSED UP AS A WORLD TITLE FIGHT”
ONLY in a sport like boxing would the phrase ‘regular’ be deemed alluring and bankable. Synonyms of regular include ordinary, standard, normal and conventional, yet in boxing, this sport in which the aim is to supposedly become TBE (The Best Ever), the GOAT (Greatest of All Time), or the number one in the world, there is a growing appeal to being known as regular.
This Saturday (December 15), for instance, Rocky Fielding, the WBA regular supermiddleweight champion, will exploit being regular in a Madison Square Garden headline fight against Mexican superstar Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, a man whose fame and fortune doesn’t make the idea of being regular for one night any less enticing.
Together, Alvarez and Fielding will be happily regular. It won’t be a word they will use all too freely, for the pair know the true WBA world super-middleweight champion goes by the name of Callum Smith, but regular works for the purposes of getting Alvarez in the ring one final time before Christmas – following a slow start to 2018 – and giving Fielding the opportunity of a lifetime.
Alvarez, rest assured, hasn’t targeted Fielding because of a strong desire to get his hands on a Liverpudlian, nor because he feels a win over Fielding establishes him as the premier supermiddleweight on the planet. Instead, he likes the idea of Fielding because the Brit holds a secondary WBA world title they can sell to the masses as a primary world title and because Fielding, in looking to capitalise on being regular, is presumably a man whose head is easily turned.
Thanks to the belt, it is a tune-up fight dressed up as a world title fight; the sort of fight Alvarez believes is doable and winnable, coming as it does just three months after a gruelling 12-rounder with Gennady Golovkin. In that respect, it works for Alvarez. It fits nicely into his plan.
It also very much works for Fielding. Three years ago, remember, he was halted inside a round by Callum Smith, at which point his ceiling as a pro seemed destined to stop somewhere shy of European title level. It was hard, based on that evidence, to see him one day competing for a version of a world title, let alone confronting the likes of Alvarez.
Yet, here we are. Fielding won his current belt with a stirring fifth-round stoppage of Tyron Zeuge in July and immediately the picture changed. Rather than forever be known as the man blitzed in a round by a Liverpool rival, he was a champion – of sorts – and primed to take advantage of this label with a money-spinning defence or two.
At first, all the talk was of Fielding capitalising on that WBA regular super-middleweight title in an all-british clash with former IBF champion James Degale.
The Londoner was on the prowl for a domestic opponent, a box Fielding ticked, as well as a title that didn’t require him having to beat an opponent like Jose Uzcategui – his old IBF mandatory challenger – to retain. The WBA regular belt removed this issue.
SINCE LOSING TO CALLUM SMITH, ROCKY FIELDING’S RETURN HAS BEEN QUITE SOMETHING”
Jamie Moore, Fielding’s coach, told Boxing News the fight was a very real possibility and it appeared a date with Degale would be Fielding’s big-money reward for confounding the critics and snatching a WBA title. It was, Moore said, an opportunity they wouldn’t be able to pass up if offered. It was, many months ago, their dream fight.
But then Alvarez fancied getting some WBA regular action and a whole new level of reward was unlocked. Before we knew it, the fight, Fielding vs. Alvarez, had been announced and usurped Fielding’s demolition of Zeuge as the number one Fielding-related shock of 2018. There were myriad questions concerning its creation and even the publicity shots of the two boxers standing head-to-head in New York were tough to accept as anything other than photoshopped images from Rocky Fielding’s wildest fantasies. Yet it was on, and it was real, and Fielding truly had his dream first defence.
It’s hard to begrudge him his moment. His is a story of perseverance and, since losing to Smith, Fielding’s return to prominence has been quite something. He has edged a couple of close ones against the likes of Christopher Rebrasse and John Ryder, he has registered a first-round knockout of his own against David Brophy, and he famously upset Zeuge, inside five rounds in Offenburg, Germany. All in all, Fielding is undefeated in his last six, and buoyed by a newfound confidence and composure, which should help prepare him for what lies ahead in New York this weekend.
Just as key to the outcome of Saturday’s fight might be the Liverpudlian’s size. He is, at six-footone and 12 stone, a bigger man than Gennady Golovkin, Alvarez’s last opponent, and considerably heftier than the men against whom the Mexican defeated before. Fielding can whack hard enough at a fringe world-class level to trouble solid fighters and there’s plenty of variety to his work, too, despite operating with long levers.
Will size matter on Saturday, given the clear discrepancy in ability and top-flight experience between the two? No, probably not. But Fielding’s physicality might, if nothing else, allow him to manhandle Alvarez, five-foot-nine, up close, perhaps setting him up for power shots, or might, at the very least, help the 31-year-old Brit take punches smaller men might struggle to absorb.
ALVAREZ CAN MAKE ERRORS: HE ATE CONTAMINATED MEAT; HE WAS THRASHED BY MAYWEATHER”
Working against this, of course, is the fact that this will be Alvarez’s 14th world title fight and his fifth fight against a British opponent. So, although yet to compete as a supermiddleweight (bar a 164lb catchweight win over Julio Cesar Chavez Jnr last year), he has a wealth of experience and has encountered and mostly conquered every style faced as a middleweight and super-welterweight.
Another thing in Canelo’s favour is the momentum he carries into Saturday’s fight. In stark contrast to how the year started – remember the failed performance-enhancing drug test for clenbuterol? – Alvarez is now riding the popularity of a win over Golovkin and strutting like a man who has just signed an 11-fight, $365m deal with new streaming juggernaut DAZN. Somehow, having started the year as a villain, he is now, thanks to some leniency, a victory over his arch enemy and a bumper broadcast contract, once again a hero, the golden boy to whom the rest must bow down if they want to get paid.
More than that, he is back to calling the shots, liberated by the freedom of an 11-fight deal. He can fight when he wants, as often as he wants, and whoever he wants. This means, rather than competing twice a year, as is the custom for elitelevel fighters, Canelo, 28, will likely box four or five times a year and use this increased activity rate to conceal a drop in the overall standard of opposition.
Make no mistake, Rocky Fielding, the first of the 11, has been picked. He has been picked because he holds a title and is considered a soft touch, he has been picked because Canelo is back in the driving seat, therefore fortunate enough to pick, and he has been picked because the Mexican is keen for some fresh meat having spent the last 18 months consumed by a heavyhanded Kazakh.
This reality, depending on the character of the opponent, the chosen one, can sometimes prove decisive on fight night. It could result in an inferiority complex. It could mean the underdog offers too much respect. It could lead to an early surrender.
In the case of Fielding, it’s hard to shake the forecasts of those who expected him to freeze against Zeuge back in July. They said the magnitude of the task, on foreign soil, would be too much. They pointed to the way he came apart against Smith. They said Fielding was the ultimate confidence fighter, someone who needed to believe in himself to thrive, and that self-doubt had long been a troublesome opponent for him as both an amateur and pro.
In the end, his stunning stoppage of Zeuge was a middle finger salute to the doubters, and to his own doubts, but one has to wonder how the amiable Scouser will cope with leaping not one but two or three levels – in occasion, in opponent – on Saturday in New York.
Certainly, there can be no greater test of a fighter’s resolve than a night in the company of boxing’s preeminent superstar. You can be sure, too, that Canelo is a man Fielding will have watched on television over the years and seen share the ring with fellow superstars. Not only that, he will be acutely aware of the fact Liam Smith, a fellow Liverpudlian, Amir Khan, Ryan Rhodes and Matthew Hatton all fell short when leaving the UK to fight Alvarez. (Only Hatton, facing Alvarez in the Mexican’s first world title fight, managed to last the distance.) If you’re looking for reasons why Fielding might freeze, or might suddenly feel overwhelmed, you don’t have to look far.
Frankly, were Fielding challenging one of the real world titlists at supermiddleweight – say, Callum Smith (WBA) again, Gilberto Ramirez (WBO) or David Benavidez (WBC) – he would start a massive underdog and the fight would be considered a jump in class. For an opponent of Alvarez’s calibre, however, Fielding is nowhere near ready – he might never be ready.
Then again, just because Fielding isn’t ready doesn’t mean he can’t win; in the same way boxing produces occasional shocks on the fight schedule, the sport also has a habit of delivering shocks in the ring. It’s why they fight. It’s why we watch.
Let’s not forget, either, that Alvarez, despite recovering his superstar status, remains a human being prone to making human errors. He ate contaminated meat earlier this year, he was thoroughly thrashed by Floyd Mayweather in 2013, and he was once badly shaken by Jose Miguel Cotto in the first round of a fight in 2010. He can be outboxed, he can be hurt, and he can be caught out. Moreover, if, according to the sanctioning bodies and the Las Vegas State Athletic Commission, Canelo Alvarez was a human being making human mistakes at the start of the year, he surely remains a human being capable of making human mistakes, in the ring, as 2018 draws to a close.
Suffice to say, exposing the Alvarez’s fallibility will require a monumental effort on the part of Fielding. To do so, he will need to be better than ever, show things he has never had to show, and somehow overcome inordinate talent with size and superstar perks with blue-collar hustle. It will be hard work. It will be new to him. He might need to be become someone else. But if, on Saturday night, Michael Fielding, the regular champion, can pull off being Rocky in more than just name and regular in title only, you just never know.