By Jason Kim: WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez (39-0-1, 29 KO’s) has a very real chance of beating Floyd Mayweather Jr. (42-0, 26 KO’s) if he gets picked out to face him at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada on May 5th.
It’s no secret that Mayweather picked that date specifically to take advantage of the Cinco de Mayo Mexican holiday and it goes without saying that Mayweather will be facing a Mexican fighter on that date to get as many Mexican fans as possible to pay to see his fight on PPV.
Alvarez will be taking a big step up in class if he gets this fight with Mayweather, as his most important fights of his seven-year pro career has come against Ryan Rhodes, Matthew Hatton, Alfonso Gomez, Kermit Cintron, Lovemore N’dou, Carlos Baldomir and Jose Miguel Cotto. None of them can hold a candle to Mayweather. It’s not really even close. However, Alvarez is young and like a lot of young fighters, he can quickly adapt to the different talent levels of his opponents. Alvarez has good excellent skills on his own right, so he’s not someone that is going to have to fight over his head.
Alvarez has got a number of advantages over Mayweather:
Power
Size
Inside fighting ability
Youth
Where Mayweather has the advantages are in these areas:
Speed
Experience
Defensive skills
Mobility
Ring generalship
It would seem that Mayweather has enough things going for him that he should win this fight. However, he hasn’t faced someone like Alvarez in many years. His last opponent Victor Ortiz basically quit when the going got tough by fouling and then dropping his gloves as if he was sacrificing himself. Before that, Mayweather beat a shot Shane Mosley, who had Mayweather badly hurt in the 2nd round after hitting him with a massive right. Mosley gassed out after that brief expenditure of energy and just stood around the last 10 rounds doing very little. That wasn’t the kind of test for Mayweather that Alvarez will be bringing to the table.
Comments are closed.