Saul Alvarez vs. Luciano Leonel Cuello on July 10th

By Jim Dower: Unbeaten junior middleweight Saul Alvarez (32-0-1, 24 Ko’s) faces Argentinian Luciano Leonel Cuello (26-1, 12 KO’s) on July 10th at the Arena VFG, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. Alvarez, 19, is taking on a little better opponent than he’s faced in the past and his management are hoping that Alvarez looks good and shows signs of progress. Alvarez, 5’9″, moved up in weight from the welterweight division recently, where he’s ranked number #3 WBC, #4 WBO, and #5 WBA.

At welterweight, Alvarez looks to be much more effective than he is at light middleweight, because his size is more impressive at welterweight. At only 5’9″, Alvarez won’t be a big light middleweight and will be finding himself in with fighters that can hit almost as hard as him, but who are much better boxers. As we saw in Alvarez’s disappointing performance against Jose Miguel Cotto in his last fight in May, Alvarez gets hit a lot and he also is susceptible to getting hurt, like he was in the 1st round against the lightweight Cotto.

Watching Alvarez have all that he can handle by the much smaller Cotto in their fight in May, I wasn’t feeling very confident about Alvarez’s chances when he steps it up against opponents as big or bigger than him in the light middleweight division. I can only imagine what a hard slugger like Alfredo Angulo or James Kirkland would be able to do to a fighter like Alvarez. It probably wouldn’t be very pretty. Alvarez is about to turn 20, so his age is no longer an excuse for him being so wide open defensively.

He either has defensive ability or he doesn’t, and I don’t see any right now. I think he’s a good prospect, but you got to have a little more well rounded game if you want to compete against the best fighters on the planet. I think in the end, Alvarez will be too small and too limited to compete at light middleweight.

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