Canelo Could 'Make History' At Heavyweight Because He Has Mike Tyson 'Power,' Hopkins Says

Bernard Hopkins has made a bold claim about Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s case of possibly moving up to the heavyweight division.

Alvarez has already proven himself in the light heavyweight division. People close to him have been suggesting that he can also beat heavyweights as he hit like one. Among the famous boxing personalities who recently weighed in on the subject was former multi-division champ Hopkins.

According to Hopkins, Alvarez is a cut above the rest and is already equipped with the tools to succeed in the cruiserweight and heavyweight divisions. “B-Hop” also pointed out that the Mexican’s physique and power are similar to that of Mike Tyson’s.

“Canelo’s is a different athlete than the athletes of last 15 to 10 years, to be able to do what he do at multiple weight classes at one time,” Hopkins told Elie Seckbach of EsNews. “But if you look at Canelo’s legs, if you look at his back, I’m not surprised he could go up to [175 pounds] and look comfortable and never lose speed, head movement or anything that could handicap him.”

“I won’t be surprised if Canelo moves to small heavyweight slash [/] cruiserweight, and make history at the next weight classes,” he added. “Why? He’s compacted, he’s got that Mike Tyson type of body. If you look at Mike Tyson, and you look at Canelo, and I’m talking about the Mike Tyson when he was [at] his age of Canelo, yes he was bigger, but you can see the resemblance of the power, the compacted body, the tree trunk leans, the calf, don’t look at his thigh, look at his calf, he’s calf is like Walter Peyton[‘s]. He can carry that weight successfully.”

Alvarez last competed at the light heavyweight division in 2019 when he dismantled Russia’s Sergey Kovalev. At the moment, his team is working on a potential super middleweight clash against Caleb Plant.

However, according to Alvarez’s associate, veteran promoter Eddie Hearn, the multi-division champ wants to take on another light heavyweight such as Artur Beterbiev.

“We’re going to talk through the next move,” Hearn told Little Giant Boxing. “Of course, we’ve made it clear we want the Caleb Plant fight and it’s time to start getting that into full process now. He’s probably ready to get back to work now. Ultimately, Saul [Canelo] and Eddy [Reynoso] will tell me what to do.”

“Canelo Alvarez is the absolute pound-for-pound king, he has the right to fight whoever he wants,” he added. “Maybe after this he’ll go to light-heavyweight and he may fight Artur Beterbiev and he may fight Dmitry Bivol. He doesn’t care, he doesn’t care. He told me about Beterbiev. I said, ‘Woah, shouldn’t we fight Bivol first?’ [He said], ‘No, we want him’.”