One of the biggest differences between boxing and MMA is how a loss is treated in each sport. In MMA, a loss is almost meaningless by itself. What matters is what kind of a loss it was. There are losses, for instance, that have made fighters’ stock actually go up (like Chael Sonnen after his first loss to Anderson Silva) because of the heart and courage they showed in the fight.

In boxing, on the other hand, having an ‘O’ in the loss column is these days almost looked at as a pre-requisite for any up-and-coming boxer. This leads the most promising boxers to fight ‘tomato cans’ on the come-up to an eventual title shot and/or a massive money fight.

Even at the top, boxers mostly avoid taking tough fights. This is actually one of the things that have made boxing so frustrating for fans. However, this is not always the case. And maybe the boxing fans, too, are quite forgiving of losses, as Israel Adesanya pointed out was the case with Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez.

“People [boxers] were protecting their ‘O’. And I’ve seen it. People are like, when someone loses they’re like ‘Oh he’s one [in the loss column], oh now he’s done.’ Like Canelo’s still one of the biggest boxers on the planet. Even though he had that one loss to Mayweather, I don’t think it took away from him. I think it actually elevated him, even helped the style ‘cuz he learned from the head movement of Mayweather that like, ‘I need to, you know, get some of this head movement in my game,'” Adesanya said on the ‘Adam Corolla Show’.

Alvarez was just 23 when he fought Floyd Mayweather. The Mexican was firmly on the come-up at that time. And the loss did earn a lot of stock among fans for his gutsy loss to the all-time great.

The same can be said of Israel Adesanya who practically cleaned out his division during his reign as UFC middleweight champion. He won the title twice and defended it a total of six times. His first UFC loss was at a higher weight class when he tried to become a simultaneous two-weight champion. Despite the loss, Adesanya earned the praise of the legendary Jon Jones, with whom he was feuding at the time.

Fans gave ‘Canelo’ a lot of credit because he was young, undefeated, and risked his ‘O.’ But now ‘Canelo’ has become the one who avoids tough matchups.

Is Canelo Alvarez ‘ducking’ mandatory Benavidez?

In a clear case of living long enough to become a villain, ‘Canelo’ Alvarez has become the second Mayweather of the boxing world. Even though the Mexican champ had a mandatory in another rising Mexican boxing star, David Benavidez, he chose to fight Edgar Berlanga last month, against whom he was a -1800 favorite going in.

His loss to Dmitry Bivol is the only loss on his record except the Mayweather one. And that loss did take the hype surrounding him down a peg momentarily. But it hasn’t affected his star power at all in the long run. What has been affected, however, is ‘Canelo’s appetite for risk-taking.

While he had moved up to 175 to fight Bivol, the Mexican champ is now back to his 168-pound super middleweight division. And that is perhaps why he is refusing to fight the pound-for-pound #1 fighter, Terence Crawford, even though ‘Bud’ is willing to come up two weight classes to fight ‘Canelo’ at 168. What are your thoughts on Canelo refusing to fight Crawford?