Canelo Alvarez was set to fight Joshua Clottey on December 6 to begin his three-year HBO contract, but pulled out recently because of an ankle injury. Alvarez is choosing to heal up for a major fight in May against either WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto or Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.
Clottey, trying to fight his way back to relevance, is unhappy that he lost his big fight and claimed that Alvarez is not actually hurt.
"I wanted to fight with Canelo and let people know that I'm still in the game, that's why I'm so happy about the Canelo fight because I wanted to prove like I proved in Australia that I'm still in the game. I wanted to prove the same thing in America. I don't believe Canelo is injured," Clottey said.
Clottey, who has lost both of his highest-profile fights to Miguel Cotto in 2008 and Manny Pacquiao in 2009, has won his last three fights. The third was against Anthony Mundine in Australia, which raised his stock enough to earn another chance in the spotlight.
"The Mundine fight was very small money. It's not a money issue because the money was too low. I did not think about the money, I only wanted to prove to the world that I'm still there and the Manny Pacquiao fight was just a bad day for me," Clottey said.
"I took the Mundine fight to prove to the whole world and I did. Australian people did not even believe me. I mentioned I was coming to Australia to fight and everybody would like to come and watch or buy the pay-per-view because they know what I can do. The same thing I wanted to prove in America."
Golden Boy president Oscar De La Hoya said Alvarez's ankle injury has plagued him since before his bout with Erislandy Lara. In that fight Alvarez came away with a controversial split decision victory that many felt Lara won with his movement and ring generalship.
"I just spoke to Canelo, and he said, 'Look, my ankle has been bothering me since the Lara fight, way before the training camp started,' and then he said, 'I just have to get this taken care of. I'd rather do it now because 2015 is going to be huge for me,'" De La Hoya said.
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