Canelo Alvarez has broken thumb, won’t fight again in 2016

Alvarez, the lineal middleweight world champion, moved down to the junior middleweight division and stopped England’s Liam Smith in the ninth round to win a 154-pound world title on Saturday night before 51,240 fans at AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys, in Arlington, Texas.

Junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez has a broken right thumb that will keep him out of the ring for the rest of the year. Alvarez won with a knock out in the ninth round.

“Canelo does not need surgery and the prognosis is excellent”, a Golden Boy Promotions spokesman wrote in a statement released Monday. After the fight, Alvarez noted that he had injured his right hand during the second round and it slowed him down in his pursuit of the knockout finish.

‘I was actually only using my left hand for the most part, making sure left hand was connecting with power, ‘ he said.

Canelo’s hand will be immobilized for the next six weeks, and he will be unable to fight again in 2016.

Friedman says the plan is still for Alvarez to take on unified middleweight titleholder Gennady Golovkin in September 2017.

Oscar De La Hoya, Alvarez’s promoter, had eyed a 10 December fight at Madison Square Garden, with the likes of David Lemieux, Billy Joe Saunders and Curtis Stevens mentioned as possible opponents.

“Tom texted me and said he’ll reach out to me to meet this week”, Gomez said.

Alvarez had a date reserved for early December on the HBO calendar, but now he will go into 2017 without fighting again. That’s the biggest fight date on Canelo’s calendar. “September will be the Golovkin fight”.