Canelo Alvarez Once Negotiated His Brother's Ransom Money

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Having to stay calm days or hours before you get into the ring for a fight must be a tough business to deal with. In an interview with Graham Bensinger, Canelo Alvarez revealed that days before his 2018 fight with Rocky Fielding he had to negotiate a ransom payment for his kidnapped brother.

The boxer was personally on the phone with the kidnappers to coordinate the payment procedure to make sure that his brother made it home safely. He was of course very involved in the process. As he was ultimately who paid for the release. He also revealed to Bensinger why he kept the affair under wraps for so long.

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Canelo revealed at the time the family decided that they did not want to alert the police about the situation. First and foremost, the family decided to keep the affair private because they believed that local police could have been involved in the kidnapping.

Also, if the story leaked to the press at the time because of it being Canelo's brother it could lead to kidnappers panicking and not being willing to negotiate. Therefore, the Alvarez family decided it was a better idea to keep the conversations private.

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Just as he is in the ring Canelo mentions that he was as calm as humanly possible throughout the negotiations. In the negotiations, he did not get the feeling that his brother was not coming home. The severity of the situation kind of settled in after the fact for the boxer who said,

"After I negotiated his release, I was still thinking, imagine if it was my daughter, or my mom or my dad, it would have been even more difficult for me."

For Alvarez having to go through the interviews and other events that preceded the fight that week was especially difficult. Particularly since no one from the media was aware of what had gone on. He just had to keep on as if nothing was wrong.

In the ring, nothing looked wrong that night for sure. Canelo was able to put in a relatively short night of work. As he ultimately knocked out Fielding in the third round after 4 knockdowns at the begging of the fight.

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In the same interview, Alvarez talks about former boss Oscar De la Hoya. Just as he doesn't mess around in the ring, Canelo was direct when discussing his feelings on Oscar. He mentioned that,

"Oscar does not do anything at Golden Boy" (The boxing promotion company that De La Hoya started)

He went on to say about De la Hoya that he is just worried about drinking and that he and the executives at Golden Boy promotions are just worried about their own benefits and not their fighters.