"He is going down in Hall of Fame" - Floyd Mayweather praises Canelo Alvarez

Floyd Mayweather has praised Canelo Alvarez for his guts and strong will to step up and accept and seek out challenges in his race to attain greatness.

Alvarez is no stranger to looking for new and dangerous opponents capable of giving him a hard time in the ring. Fans saw this in his most recent fight against Dmitry Bivol. Alvarez challenged Bivol and moved up to light heavyweight to fight the Russian-Korean boxer. While he lost, he values it as a learning experience.

Mayweather has taken notice and offered some encouraging words about the Mexican boxer:

"One thing about Canelo, he's gonna step up to the plate and do what he gotta do. He's gonna fight. I can't knock the motherf***er because he's going down in the Hall of Fame."

This isn't Mayweather's first time talking about Canelo and the Hall of Fame. He made similar comments back in 2013 before their match:

"And someday, Canelo's gonna go down in the Hall of Fame... As one of the opponents I beat."

See the Tweet here from Michael Benson:

Watch Mayweather's statements from 2013:

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Floyd Mayweather states Canelo Alvarez became famous because of him

Floyd Mayweather stated in a phone call interview with Fight Hype that Canelo Alvarez only gained his fame because he fought on 'Money' Mayweather's undercards.

Mayweather revealed that the goal was to have Alvarez fight on his undercard every time he had a match in order to build him up for a superfight between the two.

It was a plan that was successfully executed, and once they met in the ring in 2013, Alvarez was handed his first professional loss, 43 fights into his career. The result of the loss weighed heavily on Alvarez, who then exploded in popularity as he ran through multiple divisions over a 15-fight win streak to claim titles in different weight classes.

Canelo Alvarez's goal has always been to achieve greatness, and in order to do so, he believes risk-taking is necessary. Despite his loss against Dmitry Bivol, Canelo has stated that he is still proud of himself for seeking out new challenges, even though he has already proven himself to be one of the best boxers in history.

This awarded greatness, though, is something Floyd Mayweather believes he had a heavy hand in granting.

Mayweather posted this photo to Instagram: