By Dan Ambrose: Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions says his fighter WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-0-1, 30 KO’s) can’t possibly make 147 lbs. even if he wanted to for a big money fight against boxing’s biggest star Floyd Mayweather Jr. (44-0, 26 KO’s) on September 14th.
The only way the fight can happen is if Mayweather moves up in weight to 154 so that the younger 22-year-old Canelo doesn’t have to struggle with making weight.
Speaking with thesweetscience.com, De La Hoya said this about why Canelo can’t fight Mayweather at 147: “No, no no. [Canelo] legs are so thick. His neck is so thick. Floyd is a competitor. He wants to fight the best. I don’t see an issue of not making 154.”
There is a BIG problem about Mayweather fighting Canelo at 154. It’s that Canelo wouldn’t fight Mayweather at 154. That’s the problem. That’s the weight that Canelo would weigh-in at. After he rehydrates, Canelo would likely step inside the ring weighing over 170 lbs., and have a weight advantage of 20+ pounds on the night of the fight.
Is that fair to Mayweather that he’s fighting a guy outweighing him by more than 20 pounds? Canelo’s fans say Mayweather should just bulk up to 160 so it’s not a big deal, but Mayweather can’t do that without slowing himself down dramatically. He’s not a power puncher, so putting on 14 pounds to fight Canelo would hurt Mayweather instead of helping him.
If he was a slugger at 147, then maybe it would be okay to bulk up and fight Canelo. But it still wouldn’t be a good idea because Canelo is a natural 170 pounder. If Mayweather bulked up, he’d just be a slow guy and not a powerful fighter.
Canelo would struggle to even make 152, according to De La Hoya. In other words, Canelo is barely making 154 as it is and he can’t go lower. However, De La Hoya doesn’t see Canelo moving to middleweight any time soon. He’s going to keep fighting at that weight and it’s easy to see why.
At 154, Canelo rehydrates to the 170s and then Golden Boy matches him against a welterweight that they pull up from 147 and then Canelo has a big weight advantage. If Canelo were to move up in weight to 160, he would fight guys that were almost as heavy as him and some fighters that are heavier than him.
The pressure on Canelo to fight WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin would be huge and that’s a fight that Canelo probably can’t win because Golovkin punches harder than him and he’s more skilled. You can’t take a Canelo vs. Golovkin fight and make it open scoring and expect the judges to give Canelo every round like they did with the Canelo vs. Austin Trout fight.
Canelo was out-landed in that fight, but the excuse for him winning was that he was landing the harder shots. You couldn’t say that if Canelo were to fight Golovkin because he punches harder than Canelo, throws more punches and he has better stamina.
It’s a fight that Canelo would lose and perhaps that’s why he’s struggling so hard to stay at 154 because if he moves up in weight the pressure for him to fight Golovkin will be tremendous.
Boston Herald writer Ron Borges is sympathetic to Canelo’s cause, and he points out that a lot of fighters have died from losing a lot of weight to take a fight. What Borges doesn’t say is that there have been a lot of fighters that have taken vicious beatings when out-weighed by their opponents by more 20 pounds.
You can’t ignore how common it is for fighters to take beatings from guys that had big weight advantaged over their opponents. Look at the beating Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. gave to Andy Lee last year. Chavez Jr. looked huge compared to Lee and that extra weight that he was carrying around had to help him in big way in defeating Lee.
At the end of the day if Canelo can’t make the 147 lb. weight limit for the Mayweather fight then he doesn’t get the Mayweather fight. That’s just the way it is. If Canelo wants to fight other welterweights and have them move up to 154 to fight them, then Golden Boy can continue to pull the lighter guys up for Canelo to crush with his weight advantage. But it’s not going to be Mayweaher. He’s not going to fight someone outweighing by 20 lbs. just because De La Hoya wants him to.
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