Mexican boxing star Saul "Canelo" Alvarez denies Freddie Roach's statements about being "lazy" while training at the Wild Card Gym owned by the world-class trainer.

"Canelo" remains focused on his next fight against Miguel Cotto on Nov. 21 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas and will not let Roach's statements bother him. He will rather let his performance on Saturday do the talking, Boxing Scene reported.

"My words are most important November the 21st in the ring," the 25-year-old boxer said.

However, later on, he decided to address the matter, stating that he never even trained at Roach's gym.

"My recollection is I've never been to Freddie Roach's gym," the young fighter said.

Yet, the site noted that "Canelo" may be thinking that Roach was pertaining to the Wild Card Boxing Club. In his previous comments, Roach referred particularly to his other gym, the Wild Card West Boxing Club.

Roach's comments on "Canelo"

Another article from Boxing Scene informed that Roach learned that "Canelo's" dedication in his training was not that impressive. Roach even described him as " lazy." The boxing coach, who trains Cotto, cited staff reports from Wild Card West saying that "Canelo" failed to show up in his daily sessions. The Mexican boxer reportedly did not even show up for a week. Thus, Roach thought of him as "a young kid who's got the world by the balls."

Roach then predicted that his Puerto Rican fighter will easily break him down because he is "not sure how durable" Alvarez is. This may indicate that his attitude about training remains the same and could affect how good his conditioning is before the fight on Saturday.

"I think he fatigues in the middle rounds quite often in most of his fights. He's very good early and I think in the later rounds he fades a little bit," the coach observed.

Thus, endurance will be Cotto's edge over the younger opponent.

Vacant WBC throne

Just a few days before the fight, the World Boxing Council announced that it no longer recognizes Cotto as its middleweight world champion, Boxing News reported.

"The WBC hereby announces that effective immediately has withdrawn recognition of Miguel Cotto as WBC World Middleweight Champion. If Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez wins the fight against Cotto, he will be recognized as the WBC middleweight world champion."

Boxing Scene noted that Cotto revealed the root of this issue was not agreeing to pay the sanctioning body an amount of $1.1 million -- $300,000 as sanctioning fee and $800,000 set aside fee for Gennady Golovkin. However, the Puerto Rican warrior feels it is not "reasonable" for him to pay that big amount.

Does Alvarez have what it takes to capture the vacant WBC throne?

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