Santa Cruz picks Mayweather Jr. to beat Canelo

By Boxing News - 07/15/2013 - Comments

mayweather 003(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Dan Ambrose: Former IBF bantamweight champion Leo Santa Cruz is picking unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. (44-0, 26 KO’s) to defeat WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-0-1, 30 KO’s) in their fight in 2 months on September 14th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Santa Cruz says he hopes Canleo will win, but he thinks Mayweather’s experience and defense will lead him to victory. However, he does think Canelo has a chance of winning if he can land one of his big power shots, but that’s a big if.

Santa Cruz said to Laceupboxing “I want Canelo to win, but I think Mayweather will win because he’s more experienced, he’s got a lot of skills, he really don’t get hit. I think if Canelo can hit him with a good punch, Mayweather will go down. So, I’m hoping Canelo will beat him with a good punch and knock him out.”

The problem that will get in the way of Canelo stopping Mayweather is that Canelo doesn’t have huge Julian Jackson type one-punch power. Canelo is one of those fighters that needs to hit you over and over again before he finally stop you. This is why fighters like Matthew Hatton and Shane Mosley were able to go the full distance with him.

Even against the weaker opposition he’s faced, Canelo has struggled to get stoppages. Canelo could have a lot more knockouts if he were able to fight a lot harder and throw more punches. But he’s got stamina problems and he needs to really pace himself so that he doesn’t gas out.

Canelo kind of reminds me of George Foreman when he made his comeback in his late 30s. Foreman had to really pace himself in the second part of his career in order not to run out of gas. Canelo seems to fight in the exact same way by not really having the engine to pour it on to get a stoppage.

Santa Cruz will be challenging WBC super bantamweight champion Victor Terrazas next month on Agust 24th at the StubHub Center, in Carson, California. If Santa Cruz wins the fight, he says he wants to fight guys like Nonito Donaire. He moved up from bantamweight just to try and get a fight against Donaire and the bigger names at 122.



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