Callum Smith prepares for fight of his life against Saul 'Canelo' Álvarez

Saul “Canelo” Álvarez is more than a fighter, he’s an industry. And, for all the restrictions of the pandemic and boxing politics, business is still good – as Callum Smith has recently discovered.

Late on Saturday in San Antonio, Texas (early Sunday morning GMT), they will argue over the unbeaten Liverpudlian’s WBA “super” super-middleweight title as the incomparable Mexican reaches for a world championship to go with his several belts at light-middle, middleweight and light-heavyweight gathered over nearly a decade in a 56-fight career that began as a teenager 15 years ago.

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For all the credentials of other excellent contemporaries such as Terence Crawford, Nayoya Inoue, Errol Spence Jr and Oleksandr Usyk, the red-headed 30-year-old phenomenon from Guadalajara bears favourable comparison with Julio César Chávez, who terrorised the best in his business over three weights in the last two decades of the 20th century.

Smith, also 30, brings his own spotless CV to Texas at short notice, and, although he is acknowledged as pre-eminent at 12 stone, he is talking like a fighter privileged to be sharing a little piece of hell with a boxing nightmare. Neither has fought for over a year; they are about to make up for lost time and revenue.

In this millennium, only Floyd Mayweather Jr (to whom he lost in 2013) has had greater commercial clout than Álvarez, who chose Smith – not the other way around – giving the champion a mere month to prepare and travel to his turf. A purse of $40m when the fight was first mooted before lockdowns gripped the world has probably shrunk to a quarter of that, with Álvarez likely to pocket the bigger slice.

In the Alamodome, a stadium just over a mile from the battle where Davy Crockett simultaneously perished at the hands of Mexico’s General Santa Anna and was confirmed as an American wild west hero, Smith knows he is in for the fight of his life. He has to put aside the brief preparation he has been allowed, and said: “There’s plenty of different ways to get in shape. It hasn’t been ideal, but you make do with what you’ve got, and I’m in very good shape.”

There won’t be more than a scattering of citizens inside a biosecure stadium that holds up to 64,000 fans, but the tension and sense of occasion will be considerable, nonetheless.

In normal circumstances, Smith would be preparing for Christmas back in Liverpool inside an altogether more welcoming bubble of his three boxing brothers and their close family. He might have contemplated a mid-winter round of golf at Wallasey, where he has performed enthusiastically. Álvarez is a keen golfer, too, but their skills are now trained on a more dangerous pursuit.

When they faced off for the first time at the venue this week, Smith towered over Álvarez by fully half a foot at 6ft 3in, and he invests his rangy frame with power that has proved too much for 19 of his 27 opponents, including George Groves to secure his title two years ago.

None of his experiences will match this one, though. It was not of his making, but he is happy with that. As Álvarez said: “We chose Callum Smith because he’s ranked No 1 in the 168lb division. And, in the end, that’s what I want. I have a strong mindset. I know how to handle all of this.” He certainly does.

In 2018, DAZN signed Álvarez to a 12-fight contract worth $365m – nearly $180m more than it cost to build the venue in which they are fighting. This year, though, it turned ugly. DAZN, Eddie Hearn’s streaming partner, wanted their star to take a pay cut because of the coronavirus, he argued with his long-time promoters at Golden Boy and they went their separate ways. However, after some hard talking, DAZN got back in the Álvarez business, alongside Matchroom, Hearn and Smith.

As far as any respected historian can determine, Álvarez is the first boxer to fight brothers in world title fights at different weights, having cut up and stopped Callum’s brother, Liam, in nine rounds at light-middle in 2016. The Mexican earlier repulsed worthy British challenges by Matthew Hatton, Ryan Rhodes and Amir Khan.

There can be no doubting Smith’s determination or ability to stop the rot, although he is a 4-1 underdog. For maybe half an hour in San Antonio, he gets his own Battle of the Alamo, and a rearguard Liverpool victory would be the biggest upset of recent times; if Smith finishes upright, he will have given Álvarez a serious fright, and that alone would be a memorable achievement.