THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND

I GET very nervous and I scream like a crazy person,” Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez says with a wry little smile as he describes his emotions at ringside when Oscar Valdez, Ryan Garcia and Andy Ruiz Jnr are fighting and he is reduced to the role of a spectator. Álvarez, the best boxer in the world, feels helpless as his training partners and friends from Eddy Reynoso’s gym in San Diego climb through the ropes and battle through fights which test their ambition and resolve.

Álvarez is a methodical and dedicated fighter, whose unquenchable appetite for work is as striking as his brilliant aptitude for the clinical violence of boxing. He talks so calmly and thoughtfully this morning that it is hard to imagine him ever screaming crazily as he sits in this very same gym while he explains the close bond he shares with his fellow fighters.

“I come from a big family in Mexico,” Álvarez says, “and I have six brothers. They are all boxers. One night [in Guadalajara in January 2006] all seven of us boxed on the same promotion. It was a Guinness World Record. So I like this very much. And now I have this