Prediction: Canelo will beat Mayweather in an upset of the year

By Boxing News - 09/10/2013 - Comments

canelo785By M.Khan: This weekend’s fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez reminds me of Larry Homes when he chose the wrong time to face a young Michael Spinks. Larry thought it would be an easy win with a bigger guy man handling a much smaller heavyweight in Michael Spinks, but it didn’t turn out that way.

Holmes just needed one more win to tie Rocky Marciano’s record of 49 consecutive victories, but unfortunately Holmes underestimated Spinks and ended up losing a 15 round decision in 1985.

This year 2013 has proven to be the year of upsets, and I strongly believe that BOTH fights between Mayweather and Canelo and Lucas Matthysse and Danny Garcia this weekend will be part of this ongoing trend.

First, the blueprint of beating Mayweather is not the way Oscar Dela Hoya fought Mayweather in 2007, but the blueprint is probably a lot the way Gavin Rees fought Adrien Broner for the first 3 rounds of their encounter. Naturally Broner is not Mayweather and Rees in not Canelo.

The blueprint to beating the today’s Mayweather is left hooks to the body and head in order to stop Mayweather from cherry-picking with his right hand lead like he did to Robert Guerrero.

Canelo Alvarez has the up and down left hook that he MUST use all night if he’s to win this fight against Floyd. The only two punches that can beat Mayweather is left hook to the body and head and the right hand thrown as a hook to Mayweather’s left shoulder to throw him off balance.

The mistake that most of Mayweather’s opponents make is that they get frustrated when they cannot land their right hand. Naturally, the style of Mayweather is designed to SOLELY defend against the right power punch, and really not more than that. Mayweather’s ability to fight, the opponents frustrations and his opponents unwillingness to look bad or take risk is what wins him the fights.

This is one reason why Mayweather never wanted to fight the Manny Pacquiao, at least not yet. It will make always for a good retirement match. Accept it, even if Mayweather would lose the next two fights, he could still fight Manny Pacquiao and do well.

I have always said that anyone that can fight with their left hand like Gerry Cooney will beat Mayweather.

Canelo Alvarez has the tools to fight Mayweather, and if he abandons the right hand to Mayweather’s head until he is able to hurt Mayweather with the left, then he will win.

Canelo has to attack Mayweather with his left as Gavin Rees did to Broner in the first three rounds of their fight, creating the opening for the right hook.

My prediction is the continuation of this years big upsets: Canelo upsets Mayweather by decision. Once Mayweather gets hurt, he will become a defensive fighter accepting a decision loss.

Matthyse vs Garcia

This will be a short fight and the fight of the evening. The question is who can REALLY take a punch – Danny Garcia or Lucas Matthysse. This is the real question of this fight and we will find out. Someone is getting knocked out.

Looking back at Danny Garcia’s last fight against Zab Judah, the only real hard puncher he has faced in his last three fights is Judah. Zab was able to hurt Garcia and had it been a fifteen round fight, the outcome would have been very different. The problem with Judah that night was, he was not able to recognize how hurt Garcia was. But now Garcia is exposed because now everyone knows what he looks like and what he does when he is hurt. NOTHING.

In comparison, Matthysse has been in there with some guys that can hit and box, but still I have not seen him hurt to where we can say he cannot take a punch. What we do know is that when he does step into the ring with boxers, he can get caught up in the hope of landing something big which can take away from him winning by decision convincingly.

We can argue his two losses.

What we do know is that Danny Garcia, no matter what plan he uses, is still a stand up puncher. Garcia definitely cannot be a boxer due to the lack of foot movements. He overwhelms his opponents strictly with power. Where as Matthysse has become a pretty good defensive slugger with great combinations. I see his defense as a little tighter than Garcia’s and his improvements in his last fights is undeniable. The Lamont Peterson fight with Matthysse did not prove anything much except that Matthysse hits hard and was more agile. I did not expect Lamont to be of any threat to Matthysse. It was going to be a boring fight with Lamont trying to box once he felt Matthysse’s power.

My prediction for this fight is Matthysse by KNOCKOUT due to the fact that Garcia will be able to hurt Matthysse, but I believe that Matthysse will be able to survive and knock Garcia out in a wild exchange. Matthysse will make Garcia fight, and Garcia’s defense is not as tight as Matthysse’s.



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