(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Dan Ambrose: Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions believes the key to his fighter WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-0-1, 30 KO’s) beating Floyd Mayweather Jr. (44-0, 26 KO’s) is to outwork him by forcing him to fight hard for three minutes of every round.
De La Hoya is convinced that Mayweather fights hard for less than one minute of every round, and he believes that this is the key to his red-haired fighter Canelo to beat Mayweather by simply throwing a lot of punches to force Mayweather into using up energy.
De La Hoya said to Grada360, “Mayweather is a boxer who fights 40 seconds of each round, and Canelo must force him to fight more, because he is young and has lots of energy. You must throw a lot of punches with a good game plan. Canelo is a smarter boxer than anyone Mayweather has faced.”
It sounds like a great plan for Canelo to beat the 36-year-old Mayweather. If only Canelo could actually do all the things that De La Hoya is talking about. For one, Canelo cannot fight hard enough to wear Mayweather down, because Canelo only fights hard for 1 minute of every round. I’m surprised and disappointed that De La Hoya isn’t aware of this. If you look at Canelo’s last fight against Austin Trout, Canelo was turning red-faced and gasping for breath just throwing a couple of brief flurries each round. There were long periods in between each punch thrown, and it just looked Canelo constantly needed breathers.
I remember watching Canelo vs. 41-year-old Shane Mosley on HBO, and Emanuel Steward, who was working as an analyst for HBO, said this about Canelo: “His biggest weaknesses are he fights in spurts. There’s not much consistency in the way he fights…he doesn’t box a lot.”
That was back in May of 2012. There hasn’t been any improvement in Canelo’s game whatsoever on the front. He still fights in spurts and needs a lot of rest breaks.
I disagree with De La Hoya about Canelo being the smartest fighter that Mayweather has ever faced. I think Juan Manuel Marquez was the smartest guy that Mayweather faced, but he didn’t have the size or speed to compete with him.
I don’t see Canelo as being smarter than Marquez. I just see him being a lot bigger. We’re talking about a 172 lb. fighter facing a 150 lb. fighter in Mayweather. Canelo is a guy that should be fighting at middleweight, not junior middleweight. And Canelo definitely shouldn’t be fighting welterweights.
That obviously is a huge factor in Canelo’s success. He’s barely making 154 and then rehydrating up in near or over 170, and then he’s matched against welterweights. I don’t expect people who don’t understand what weight classes are for to get what I’m saying, so this stuff will no doubt go over their heads.
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