Flame-haired Mexican WBC light-middleweight champion Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez (38-0-1, 21KO’s) is, at just 21, one of the youngest champions in the sport today and this weekend faces possibly the toughest test of his career to date. Looking to upset the party and take Alvarez’s record will be Puerto Rican former two-time welterweight champion Kermit Cintron (33-4-1, 28KO’s) when the pair clash at a bull ring in Mexico City on Saturday night.

Even though he’s only 21 this will be Alvarez’s 40th fight so you couldn’t call him inexperienced, but the youngster has not yet faced the kind of names you’d associate with a World champion who’s pushing for pound-for-pound honors. The fact that he’s held in such high regard says more about how he’s beaten his foes than who he has beaten. Although Alvarez has a few recognizable names on the record, such as Carlos Baldomir and Alfonso Gomez, it’s the way he fights that gets people so excited.

All that could change should Alvarez defeat Cintron on Saturday night. It’s been strongly rumored that rival Mexican champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. will face Alvarez in what would be a genuine 50-50 fight. Alvarez is of course fighting at a weight lower than middleweight Chavez Jr. but it doesn’t seem too much of an obstacle in the way of the pair meeting in an all-Mexican war.

Chavez’s trainer Freddie Roach has said publicly he wants Alvarez next for his charge and seeing as both are promoted by Top Rank could quite easily be arranged. Whether Top Rank and Bob Arum want to put two of their biggest money-spinners in with each other only for one to then get defeated remains to be seen. Sergio Martinez is also angling for a big payday and could be a good alternative for Alvarez. Both fights will tell us a lot about the young champion.

Can Kermit Cintron tell us anything about Alvarez? It doesn’t seem likely. Having only won once in his last three, Cintron isn’t the fighter he once was but could still provide a decent test. His last shot at a title, which ended in a farce after he fell out of the ring when challenging Paul Williams in May ’09 and was unable to continue, didn’t really tell us what Cintron had left but the fact he then went on to lose to Carlos Molina clearly over ten rounds after a year-long hiatus does. Since then Cintron has managed to scrape a win, against Antwone Smith in August, but has done little to earn his crack at the title.

Alvarez himself didn’t look particularly great last time out, laboring to a sixth-round TKO over Alfonso Gomez, but says he is more motivated for Cintron and he wasn’t as focused as he should have been on Gomez. It’s possible, because a win over Gomez means nothing for Alvarez. In truth a win over Cintron means little more but there is obviously more danger against a devastating puncher like Cintron. He will have a puncher’s chance if nothing else.

All Alvarez needs to do is be patient. He needs to work the body and take it to Cintron intelligently. Against Gomez he became frustrated from time to time and lost his cool, but when he focuses and sticks to his game plan he is a formidable opponent for any fighter at or around middleweight in the World. It seems highly unlikely that Cintron can stave off the pressure Alvarez is going to bring for twelve rounds and you’d expect him to get defeated inside the distance, but as stated Cintron only needs one punch to make a fool of every expert and pundit on the planet.

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1. Alvarez makes easy work of Cintron with fifth round TKO