By Dan Ambrose: Challenger Josesito Lopez (30-4, 18 KO’s) isn’t worried in the least about WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s size advantage in their fight next month on September 15th at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Lopez, 27, doesn’t feel that Alvarez’s size will be that much different from his own to where it’s something that he can’t overcome by being the better skilled fighter.
Lopez told fighthype.com “There’s somewhat of a size difference, but it’s not that big a deal. It’s not something I can’t overcome. I feel like I can hang with any fighter out there.”
Alvarez has been sparring with guys that mimic Lopez’s fighting style, which includes a lot of uppercuts and movement. However, it’s still going to be next to impossible to find anyone with the kind of game that Lopez brings to the table. Lopez got the better of a faster fighter than Alvarez recently in Victor Ortiz and he did in style. Lopez looked very good and had he thrown more punches he really would have dominated.
As it is, Lopez broke Ortiz’s jaw in two places with his bone crunching uppercuts to the jaw. If Lopez can land similar shots against Alvarez he’s going to make this an interesting fight. I don’t know if Lopez can break Alvarez’s jaw like he did with Ortiz, because that seemed more like a freak injury thing, but he definitely can batter the 22-year-old Alvarez.
No one really knows how good Alvarez is right now because his promoters at Golden Boy Promotions have been matching him against older fighters or smaller fighters for ages now. Even in pitting him against Lopez, you can see that Golden Boy likely did this to ensure that Alvarez could stay unbeaten for a little while longer, long enough to get a big money fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. I don’t know but I think this may backfire against Golden Boy with Lopez pulling off an upset against Alvarez. Lopez is the faster guy and he moves a lot better than Alvarez well. Lopez has the better uppercut and he’s the bigger puncher when he loads up on his shots.
Alvarez is just a flat-footed fighter with heavy hands. He needs to bludgeon his opponents into submission by pounding them over and over again with body and head shots to get stoppage in the second half of his fights. But Lopez has the better one punch power because of his speed, and he can make things really difficult for Alvarez if he can keep moving all night long against him.
Alvarez has been hurt before by a smaller fighter in Jose Miguel Cotto in 2010, and if he can be hurt by Cotto then he can definitely be hurt by Lopez. He’s a harder puncher than Cotto and a lot bigger as well.
The biggest problem I see Alvarez having in this fight is trying to deal with Lopez’s in and out attacking style. Lopez isn’t going to be one of those slow fighters that just stands in front of Alvarez all fight long making it easy for him. Lopez will keep moving and picking his spots to take advantage of the slow and flat-footed Alvarez in this fight. It’s going to be difficult for Alvarez to deal with that kind of attack.
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