THE last minute of the seventh round of his catch-weight bout with Canelo Alvares was Floyd Mayweather at the absolute peak of his powers.
Ahead of their light-middleweight showdown in Las Vegas in September 2013, the young Mexican was seen as the man to finally topple the great man.
At 23, Alvares had power, skill and youth on his side – probably too much of the latter in hindsight.
Mayweather was 33 but showing no signs of ageing.
Up to that point, Oscar de la Hoya, Ricky Hatton, Juan Manuel Marquez, ‘Sugar’ Shane Mosley, Miguel Cotto and Robert Guerrero had threatened to take ‘Money’ Mayweather down – and they all failed.
Guerrero was an interesting candidate. An awkward, hard-punching southpaw, he was fancied to trouble the great man. Nicknamed the ‘Ghost’, Mayweather turned out to be the elusive one and made a mockery of some giddy pre-fight predictions, skating to the easiest of points victories.
It was the perfect tune-up for the heavy-handed and infinitely better Saul 'Canelo' Alvares.
Pulling Alvares down to 152lbs was undoubtedly a factor but Mayweather’s artful demolition was still awesome and looks better with every opponent that falls to the Mexican these days.
In that seventh round, he peppered Alvares with double jabs, a beautiful right uppercut and follow-up jabs to the body, each successful assault going unopposed.
Physically, Mayweather didn’t have Alvares in bad trouble – but he’d mentally broken him.
In the seventh, Canelo looked like a fighter who was completely and utterly tamed by the sheer, head-wrecking boxing craft of his opponent.
It was a virtual shut-out and yet one judge memorably saw fit to score the bout a draw.
Maybe Mayweather got Alvares at just the right time - and weight - in his career. Or maybe Mayweather was just that good.
Since that night, the Mexican hasn’t looked back, virtually owning the middle divisions. Earlier this month, he unified the super middleweight division with an 11th round stoppage of Caleb Plant.
With an impressive array of skills of his own, Alvares has been out-boxed in quite a number of his championship bouts but always finds a way to win.
Plant, a rangy and previously undefeated champion, wasn’t expected to trouble Alvares because he didn’t carry concussive power.
And yet, Plant probably exceeded expectations, defending his opponent's assaults with some clever shoulder rolling and picking his man off at will with a series of eye-catching straight rights.
In the 11th, Plant's hopes of winning were gone in an instant when Alvares administered two brazen knockdowns in quick succession.
Plant almost had the game-plan to win. Almost. Like a lot of Canelo’s opponents.
Daniel Jacobs is a skilled boxer with decent power and tough too. The American gave as good as he got for most of their absorbing bout in 2019 and was perhaps unfortunate to ship a unanimous points defeat.
Softened up by two gruelling championship bouts with Andre Ward, light-heavy champion Sergey Kovalev jabbed the head of Alvares for 11 rounds - not with any great force or conviction, it must be said - before two wicked punches left the Russian in a terrible heap on the ropes.
The flame-haired Mexican had become almost as feared as Mike Tyson in the late eighties.
Earlier this year, after a rocky opening, the slippery Billy Joe Saunders found his rhythm in the middle rounds and was causing Canelo all sorts of trouble.
But Canelo always catches up with you. A thudding, short right hand shattered Saunders’ orbital bone (around the eye) into three pieces in the eighth. And that was that.
All great fighters have similar traits. A good chin. A good punch. Good stamina and resilience. Alvares has all these things in spades.
Great fighters also need career-defining fights.
If he needed the boxing lesson handed down to him by Mayweather eight years ago, the 31-year-old also needed those two incredible bouts with Gennadiy Golovkin in 2017 and ’18 that are up there with any of the greatest fights in the modern era.
Of course, there will always be the Mayweather blemish on his record as well as failing two drugs tests in between his two bouts with GGG and incurring a 'retrospective' suspension.
Golovkin could have justifiably reneged on the rematch after Alvares blamed his drugs tests failure on eating contaminated beef – a rematch the Mexican scored a controversial win.
No matter what the Guadalajara native achieves between now and the rest of his career, some people will talk about the ‘contaminated beef’ story and perhaps question the authenticity of his daunting reign.
Right now, he remains boxing’s pound-for-pound king. After his latest dismantling, there is speculation he will move up to cruiserweight in an audacious attempt to become a five-weight world champion.
The WBC has already given the green light for Alvares to challenge their current champion IIunga Makabu, deemed the weaker champion of the division.
There are other intriguing fights out there to be made. Russia’s IBF and WBC light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev has been destroying everything put in front of him and has serious power.
There was a strong appetite for a third and decisive meeting between Alvares and GGG soon after their second bout – but that window of opportunity appears closed now with the Kazakhstani approaching 40 and showing signs in recent outings that the fire has gone out.
There are so many great fights that timing doesn’t allow to happen. It’s a genuine pity someone like Andre Ward decided to retire back in 2017.
Can you imagine Alvares and Andre Ward in the same ring? Who would your money be on?
For the time being, it’s hard to see anyone living with the fearsome Mexican.
