Canelo Genuinely Believes That He Can Beat Usyk, Says Hearn

According to promoter Eddie Hearn, who currently works with Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, the pound-for-pound boxer believes that he can beat Oleskandr Usyk, who currently holds the WBO, IBF, IBO, WBA heavyweight titles.

Canelo has captured world titles at junior middleweight, middleweight, super middleweight and light heavyweight.

He retains this coming Saturday night, against WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol.

Earlier this year, there was talk of Canelo making the leap to the cruiserweight division to challenge WBC world champion Ilunga Makabu. During last year’s WBC convention in Mexico, Canelo received permission from the sanctioning body to challenge for that title.

Canelo ultimately decided to go in another direction by facing Bivol on May 7. Should Canelo win, he will drop back to super middleweight to defend his undisputed crown against Gennadiy Golovkin in September.

Usyk will defend his heavyweight titles against Anthony Joshua in a rematch on a date in July.

Canelo has told Hearn that he believes that he can beat Usyk for the heavyweight straps – if the bout was made at a catch-weight of 201-pounds – which is one pound beyond the cruiserweight limit.

“When we talk about mindset and winning, he genuinely believes he can beat Oleksandr Usyk for the world heavyweight title,” Hearn told Joe.co.uk.

“He said to me ‘if you can make that fight at one pound above cruiserweight – which obviously Usyk was a cruiserweight – I will beat him’.

“I find it hard not to believe him. Sometimes, the only way someone like Canelo Alvarez or Vasyl Lomachenko gets beat is when they keep moving up in weight outside of where they should be. That’s maybe how Canelo Alvarez gets beat, (when) it’s a challenge too far.”