By Dan Ambrose: Dan Rafael of ESPN figures that an active Floyd Mayweather Jr. (44-0, 26 KO’s) will be a much more sharp fighter against WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-0-1, 30 KO’s) than a Mayweather that is coming off 12-18 months of inactivity to take the fight, which has been the case frequently during the last five years of Mayweather’s career.
Rafael said to ESPN “He’s [Mayweather] staying sharp by staying busy in the ring…he’s going to be fighting twice in the span of four months and it’s going to make Mayweather perhaps sharper than he’s been. That’s very scary for the other men [Canelo] across the ring from him. He’s going to be as sharp as a knife.”
What Rafael says is true. Mayweather will be a lot sharper by him having had only 4 months in between this fight and his last fight in May against Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero. Before that fight, Mayweather hadn’t fought in 12 months since his win over Miguel Cotto in May of 2012.
Since Mayweather’s win over Ricky Hatton in 2007, Mayweather has fought rarely and taken a lot of time in between fights. I’m sure that time off didn’t help him, and he would have so much more money right now if he had fought on a frequent basis in those six years.
Canelo is going to have a lot of trouble against an even better version of the Mayweather that we saw beating Guerrero.
You’ve got to imagine that Mayweather will be better for this fight because he got in 12 good rounds against Guerrero, and that fight let Mayweather get a picture of what kind of fighter he’ll be facing on September 14th when he faces Canelo because Guerrero fights a lot like Canelo and he has similar hand speed and the same flat-footed stance.
There’s no way that Canelo can beat a sharp Mayweather. That’s not going to happen unless Canelo get a knockout and don’t bet on that happening.
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