By Dan Ambrose: Trainer Nacho Beristain thinks former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-1-1.30 KO’s) should have gone all out by applying a ton of pressure on Floyd Mayweather Jr. (45-0, 26 KO’s) last night in an effort to win the fight. Beristain thinks Canelo could have possibly scored a knockdown had he gone after Mayweather in an all out assault from the start of the fight.
Of course, fighting like that would have been difficult for Canelo given that he had to drain down 13 pounds to get to the 152 lb. catch-weight, and knows how much muscle weight Canelo took off during training camp to get to 165 lbs.
Beristain said to ESPN Desportes “If [Alvarez] had gone in there with everything, if he had really put on the full press, maybe he even would have knocked [Mayweather] down…not only did we not see a change of strategy, we did see any other kind of combination beyond what they have taught to him.”
It was probably physically impossible for Canelo to fight any harder than he already was. It looked like Canelo maxed out starting from the 9th round in the fight, and yet Mayweather was still clowning him by hitting him and moving out of range. Sure, Canelo could have kept putting pressure on Mayweather like Beristain wanted him to, but it wouldn’t have produced positive results for the flat-footed fighter because he lacked the hand and foot speed to land his shots.
When you’re heavy and slow like Canelo, you’re not going to be able to hit a fighter that is much faster than him like Mayweather. Canelo was at a huge disadvantage in that he was facing a smaller fighter with superior hand speed. That’s the flip side in taking on a smaller guy. Sometimes you can crush them with your size, but other times they’re going to be too fast.
It wouldn’t be that way if Canelo would simply fight guys in his own division instead of looking to fight welterweights. Canelo is fairly fast for a super middleweight or light heavyweight, but when you have him boiling down to 154 to fight welterweights, then of course he’s going to be much slower than them and is going to have problems with their speed.
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