Canelo Alvarez had an idyllic childhood in most ways. The boxing superstar grew up in a tight-knit family of 10 on a modest ranch in San Augustin, on the outskirts of Guadalajara, Mexico.
The boy enjoyed the animals on the ranch, especially the horses. He rides to this day. And he has fond memories of working with his father — beginning at the age of 5 — at the local paletaria, which produced and sold frozen treats.
“I would help my dad make the popsicles and the shaved ice, to help supply the paletaria,” Alvarez said on promotional video. “I’d also go around on the truck selling the popsicles. I feel proud of that because it taught me to work hard.
“It taught me to be responsible from a young age?
Sounds like a tranquil existence, doesn’t it? Well, there was more to Alvarez at a young age.
He was a fighter – as in the exchanging of punches – as long as he can remember. The other kids in the area made sure of that by taunting him because of his red hair, which made him the one thing kids can’t be: different.
“I had freckles and was a redhead, so I fought every day,” Alvarez told Boxing Junkie through a translator.
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Those experiences as a child – the work ethic he learned at such a young, the willingness to stand up for himself – set the foundation for a boxing career that continues to sparkle as he prepares to defend his 168-pound titles against Avni Yildirim on Saturday in Miami.
Alvarez laced up the gloves for the first time at the age of 11, not long after he witnessed older brother Rigoberto make his professional debut in 2000 in nearby Ciudad Guzman. The sites, the sounds, the drama inside the venue. He knew immediately that was for him.
Rigoberto, 12 years older than Canelo, worked with his eager brother before his amateur debut but there was only so much he could teach in a short time. The younger Alvarez recalled the fight on the promotional video.
“I had been training with my older brother Rigoberto for about a week,” he said. “And he brought me to fight an amateur fight. As always, in your first fight, you get a draw. If you win or lose, you always get a draw so that you don’t lose the will to keep training.”
Alvarez certainly didn’t lose the will. He told Boxing Junkie that he felt at home in the ring the second the opening bell rang.
“I felt really good,” he said. “I felt fulfilled.”
As if you had found your destiny? he was asked. “Without a doubt. I was born for this,” he responded.
Alvarez showed up at the Guadalajara gym of Chepo and son Eddy Reynoso when he was 13. His skills were still raw at that point but he was sturdy and fearless. More important, he wanted to learn as much as he possibly could.
Nothing has changed since that day.
“My first impressions of him was that he was a really strong puncher,” Eddy Reynoso told Boxing Junkie through a translator. “He lacked technique but, even at a young age, you noticed that he had a lot of strength.
“… And he was always a student. He couldn’t stay still. I’ve always said the students who ask the teachers questions, those are the ones who could go far in the sport. He asked a lot of questions.
“I remember he would ask for videos of other fighters. He was very disciplined, he liked to learn. That’s something a lot of fighters don’t have.”
It wasn’t long before the Reynosos realized that they had a special fighter on their hands. And so did his potential amateur opponents in Mexico, few of whom had any interest whatsoever in fighting him by the time he had turned 15.
That’s when the Reynosos and Alvarez came to the conclusion that it made no sense to remain at the amateur level, at which he reportedly finished with a record of 44-2. Chepo approached the boy one day and said simply: “Get ready because you’re going to debut as a professional in a month.”
Alvarez was certain he was ready.
“I learned really fast,” Alvarez said. “I listened to Chepo and Eddy. They told me things that I would work on in the gym and think about when I went home. I already sparred with professional fighters, Oscar Larios, another champion.
“I was able to train with them and learn quickly because of them.”
The idea of fighting professionally at 15 wasn’t novel to the Reynosos. Marco Antonio Barrera, who lives in Guadalajara, also joined the pro ranks at that tender age in 1989. “The Baby Faced Assassin” went on to win titles in three divisions and enter the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2017.
Of course, the Reynosos believed that Alvarez had the tools to compete successfully. They also had Barrera in mind.
“He had the boxing qualities,” Eddy Reynoso said. “He was better than some of the fighters who were 20 years old. Some of them had already gone 10 rounds but they didn’t have the boxing abilities that he did.
“Look at the trajectory of Marco Antonio Barrera. He had no rivals to fight as an amateur. The same with Canelo. So my father decided to turn him professional.
“This is something I haven’t really talked about with anybody else. The inspiration to have someone so young become a professional was Marco Antonio Barrera, a fighter I followed closely. He also debuted at 15. That’s something that drove us to go that route.”
Alvarez did just fine. That first fight took place on Oct. 29, 2005, at the Arena Chololo Larios (named after the fighter) in the Tonala area of Guadalajara. He fought 0-1 Abraham Gonzalez, who was also from the area, in a scheduled four-round junior welterweight bout. They both weighed 139 pounds.
Alvarez won by a fourth-round TKO.
“It felt really good,” he said of his debut. “I was very motivated. It’s what I always dreamed about. I always thought I would debut at 18 but I ended up debuting at 15. And at 16 I was already a champion in the State of Jalisco.”
We all know what happened after that.
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