By Dan Ambrose: WBC Silver welterweight champion Josesito Lopez (30-4, 18 KO’s) isn’t worried in the slightest about his fight against WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez (40-0-1, 29 KO’s) on September 15th at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Lopez, 27, will be moving up from welterweight to take this fight, and more than a few boxing fans feel he won’t have the size to compete.
Lopez, however, told RingTV that he’s been struggling for quite some time to boil down to 140 and fight in the light welterweight division. His walking around weight in between fights is between 160 to 165 lbs, and he has to really drain himself to make 140.
As such, Lopez is like the Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. of the 140 division with all the weight he strips off to make the class. But by fighting at 154 lbs, Lopez won’t have to take off valuable water and muscle to make the weight. One of the reasons why Lopez fought so effectively against Victor Ortiz last month compared to in his past performances was that Lopez didn’t have to take off as much weight. This left Lopez a lot stronger than he’s been in quite some time. It showed in his performance because he was able to really punish Ortiz with uppercuts and eventually break his jaw to get a stoppage after the 9th round.
Lopez told RingTV “The weight is the least of the issues in my situation. The talent that Canelo has is a far bigger issue than his weight…I shocked everybody [against Ortiz], and I’m going to shock everyone again. This 140 pounder is going to give Canelo Alvarez the fight of his life.”
As Lopez revealed, he was never really 140 pounder, but rather a fighter that is effectively a middleweight to super middleweight who has found a way to melt down to 140 to gain an edge. Like Lopez said, the size of Canelo won’t be the issue. The issue will definitely be Canelo’s talent. He’s very skilled, and his game is lot more complete than Lopez’s. Alvarez also is a bigger puncher, and doesn’t have to load up on his shots in order to produce power like Lopez does. This will give Alvarez a big advantage in this fight, because he can hurt Lopez even when he’s just throwing with minimal effort.
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