Santos Saúl Álvarez Barragán (San Agustín Jalisco July 18, 1990) known as "El Canelo", is a Mexican professional boxer.
He has been WBC and The Ring middleweight champion. He has also been champion of WBA, WBC, WBO and The Ring of the super-lightweight. The Ring considers him as one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world. He is the son of Ana María Barragán Fernández and Santos Álvarez Barragán. He was born on July 18, 1990 in the town of San Agustín, municipality of Tlajomulco de Zúñiga, near Guadalajara, Jalisco. At the age of five, he moved with his family to Juanacatlán.
He has six brothers and one sister: Rigoberto, Ana Elda, Daniel Geovani, José Ricardo, Gonzalo, Víctor Alfonso and Juan Ramón. He is a boxer for his brother Rigoberto, who also boxes professionally.
The nickname was given to him by his manager José "Chepo" Reynoso, who began to say "Canelito" when he was younger and, later, "Canelo". He had a relationship with sports television journalist Marisol Gonzalez. Álvarez started boxing at 13 years of age, after witnessing the professional debut of his older brother Rigoberto Álvarez. In 2004 Saúl won the silver medal in the National Youth Championship held in Sinaloa.
A year later, he won the gold medal in the Youth Olympiad of 2005, held in Tuxtla Gutiérrez. Canelo harvested an amateur record of 44 wins (12 by KO) and two defeats.
