Canelo says sparring with his brother has helped him with southpaws like Trout

By Dan Ambrose: WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (41-0-1, 30 KO’s) figures that the sparring that he’s done in his life with his brother Rigoberto Alvarez (27-4, 20 KO’s) has helped him with fighting southpaws like WBA junior middleweight champion Austin Trout (26-0, 14 KO’s), according to Steve Kim.

Canelo and Trout will be fighting on April 20th at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. There are concerns that the 22-year-old Canelo, who fights out of the orthodox fighting stance, will have problems with Trout’s southpaw stance and will be too cautious.

Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions has already given Canelo advice by saying that the worst thing a fighter can do when fighting a southpaw is to be cautious. In other words, De La Hoya wants Canelo to go right after Trout and force the fight on him by being aggressive.

I don’t think it matters which way Canelo fights – either aggressive or cautious. I think Canelo is going to have problems with Trout’s boxing ability and defensive skills. It’s not as if Trout has never fought an aggressive Mexican fighter that has come right at him the way that Canelo likely will on April 20th. Trout is from New Mexico and he’s fought a lot of aggressive Mexican fighters during his 8-year pro career.

Canelo will just be one more aggressive guy. Instead of advising Canelo to be aggressive against Trout and end up playing into his hands, De La Hoya should have told Canelo to try and box him because that might be a better thing for Canelo to do.

The problem is Canelo doesn’t have the reach or the flexibility that Trout has, so it’s going to be difficult for Canelo to try and box him when he doesn’t have the right build to accomplish that.

Canelo is built like a small tank and he pretty much only has one way to fight and that’s by looking to run down his smaller opponents. I say smaller because his promoters at Golden Boy have made it a practice to match Canelo against smaller guys rather than fighters from his own weight division for some reason. One can only speculate why Golden Boy has done this but it seems like they’ve been protecting their investment.