Canelo: Ryan Garcia is 'wasting a lot of time and wasting his talent'

Canelo Alvarez is the mentor of 23-year-old sensation Ryan Garcia. But that doesn't mean boxing's pound-for-pound king is happy with what he sees these days from "KingRy".

Garcia began 2021 with a bang, coming back from getting dropped to the canvas and stopping Luke Campbell on January 2. Unfortunately, it's been all downhill from there as Garcia had to bow out of a scheduled July 9 fight with Javier Fortuna due to mental health issues. Garcia appeared to overcome those significant hurdles and was supposed to face Jo Jo Diaz on November 27, three weeks after Alvarez takes on Caleb Plant to determine the first-ever undisputed super middleweight champion. However, Garcia suffered a broken wrist and had surgery to repair it last week and will be on the sidelines for the remainder of the year. 

Alvarez (56-1-2, 38 KOs) and Garcia (21-0, 18 KOs) train at the same gym led by Eddy Reynoso. Despite the bond they share, Alvarez doesn't like what he's seeing from Garcia these days and believes he needs to be more focused to reach his full potential.

“Look, Ryan has a lot of talent. But to me, in my eyes, he’s wasting a lot of time and wasting his talent. I look at him and don’t see him 100 percent dedicated and, to us, that’s a bad signal,” Alvarez told Complex. “We always remind him as a team to come to the gym, to train, and to learn because you need to be in the gym. You’re learning day-by-day, at the very minimum, fighting five times a year. When I was beginning my career, I did 15 fights in one year. That’s where I was at the beginning of my career. So definitely, he needs to be a little more dedicated.” 

The Plant fight will be Alvarez's fourth fight in an 11-month span in his quest for history at 168 pounds.