For once, the sublime scribe got it wrong. He was referring to the then world heavyweight champion Sonny Liston, a bullying ogre who had frightened everyone in his path.

Back in 1964, Liston’s precocious challenger, a mouthy youngster named Cassius Clay, found a way to beat him. Former Olympic light heavyweight champion, who was to become Muhammad Ali the day after his stunning conquest in Miami, fought with fortitude and cunning to snatch Liston’s title.

Fast forward to the present day and it is the mighty Mexican, Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez who stands supreme among modern fighters and is acknowledged as the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world.

The general consensus was that this was confirmed three weeks ago when he duly dispatched American opponent Caleb Plant to unify the world super-middleweight titles and become his nation's first-ever four-weight world champion. Subsequently, there is now talk of him going for broke – a fifth world crown at cruiserweight.

Although, unlike Liston, Alvarez did not have an unblemished record – he was narrowly beaten in his early days by Floyd Mayweather Jr and, in my view, received a highly dodgy decision in his first fight with Gennady Golovkin.

But as things stand, he is now regarded as unbeatable.

But is he? I am not so sure, as I wrote for insidethegames before the 60th contest of his career, against Plant.

There is much to admire in Canelo's technique but he is something of a flawed fighter having once failed a drugs test and receiving only a token slap on the wrist seemingly because of his popularity and crowd-pulling potential.

So the Mexican's bountiful bandwagon rolls on. Onwards and upwards, perhaps to cruiser. And standing only at only 5 foot 7 inches, it is possible he could acquire yet another title.

He could also defend one of the four super-middleweight belts he now holds and by chance could encounter yet another British fighter to add to the half-dozen he has already vanquished. You might say he eats Brits for breakfast, a diet which has included former Olympic silver medallist Amir Khan and the hitherto unbeaten Billy Joe Saunders.

There is no doubt he oozes excitement with a style as fierce as the hottest Mexican jalapeño. And next up to endure it could be the former British champion, Zach Parker, now the mandatory contender for Canelo’s World Boxing Organization belt, and presently unbeaten.

However, this obviously would be a high-risk belt for the relatively untried Parker, who may be better off biding his time until the Canelo cannons are less potent, for I suspect that Canelo will be less of a wrecking machine within a couple of years.

And great as he surely is, I do believe there is one Britain who would have beaten him – Welshman Joe Calzaghe, who himself retired undefeated as the longest-reigning world super-middleweight champion.

Calzaghe says that as a fighter Alvarez "ticks all the boxes", adding: "He seems to improve all the time.

"He has this ability to nullify opponents and take away their advantages."

Such a shame that we might never know how much of an advantage drugs have given Canelo.