De La Hoya believes Canelo is fighting Mayweather at the right time

By Boxing News - 05/31/2013 - Comments

canelo7By Chris Williams: Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions believes that WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez is getting Floyd Mayweather Jr. at the right time in Mayweather’s career with him showing signs of aging at 36 and with Canelo coming off of a 12 round unanimous decision win over WBA junior middleweight champion Austin Trout last April in San Antonio, Texas. Trout is the perfect opponent for Canelo to get ready for Mayweather.

De La Hoya said to RingTV.com “I don’t think it’s too soon [for Canelo]. I think that it’s the perfect moment…Canelo is only getting better…this is the perfect time, the perfect time.”

I don’t believe that Canelo is getting better. He looks to be one of those fighters that matures early and will likely be over the hill by the time he’s 33. I don’t think he’s going to be one of those fighters that fights at a high level until 36 like Mayweather.

I can’t see that happening because his last fight against Trout, which Canelo barely won, showed a fighter who can’t fight hard for three minutes and who has serious stamina problems. Canelo looked mechanical in that fight and not fast. He’s not someone that will be able to do take a lot of rest breaks and beat Mayweather because the fight won’t have open scoring, so he’ll have to fight hard because he won’t know what the scores are.

If Golden Boy Promotions wanted to improve their chances of Canelo winning the fight, they probably should have waited until Mayweather was at the last fight of his six-fight contract with Showtime/CBS. However, it’s the right time for Canelo to take the fight now because he’s probably as good as he’ll ever been at 22, and I can’t see his stamina getting any better a year from now. I think it’s all downhill from here for the red-headed fighter.

Canelo will have a big weight advantage in the fight. and if he comes into the fight weighing 170, then that might be enough to win. He’s fighting a welterweight while weighing near or at the light heavyweight limit. If that’s not enough for Canelo to beat Mayweather then there’s nothing he can do about it.

Weighing 20 pounds more than Mayweather is really Canelo’s only advantage. He’s not as good as him and never will be. Canelo is just someone that Golden Boy is angling against lighter guys from the welterweight division. He’s not fighting guys 20 pounds heavier than himself and he probably never will.

Golden Boy won’t let that happen. If the shoe was on the other foot and Canelo was unbeaten at 36-years-old, and Mayweather was 22 and had a 20 pound weight advantage, I don’t think De La Hoya or Golden Boy would dare putting Canelo in with Mayweather.

They’re doing it now because Canelo is basically a middleweight/super middleweight and he’s got a big weight advantage over Mayweather.

Golden Boy doesn’t want to put Canelo in with middleweights like Gennady Golovkin or Peter Quillin because those guys can really punch and Canelo’s weight advantage wouldn’t be 20 pounds like it was with Mayweather. He’d still likely have a weight advantage over those middleweights, but not a huge weight advantage.



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