Canelo says movement will be key for him against Angulo

By Boxing News - 02/17/2014 - Comments

By Dan Ambrose: For boxing fans expecting to see former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-1-1, 30 KO’s) go to war with Alfredo Angulo (22-3, 18 KO’s) in their fight on March 8th, you might be a little bit disappointed to learn that the 23-year-old Canelo is talkig about using movement against Angulo to try and nullify his attacks.

So instead of seeing the Canelo that beat up light welterweight fighters like Josesito Lopez and welterwights like Matthew Hatton, we could see the Cotto that used movement against Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Austin Trout to avoid getting worn down by them. Against Trout, it worked enough for Canelo to win. But against Mayweather, Canelo gave away the fight by moving instead of using his superior size and power advantage to slug.

The Canelo-Angulo fight will be staged at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, and it’ll be televised on Showtime pay-per-view.

“Movement is very important,” Canelo said to RingTV. “I have to be ready from the opening bell. He’s a dangerous fighter and I know that. I have my game plan, so movement will be a big part of the strategy but I’m going to be ready from the opening bell. After the opening bell, I have to be ready for his style.”

For mew, it’s disappointing to see Canelo already talking about trying to run from Angulo, as I was hoping that the red-haired Caenelo would try to fight Angulo the same way he did Lopez, Mosley, and Alfonso Gomez. Of course, those guys are all much smaller than Canelo, and this enabled him to stand in front of them and use his big weight advantage to overpower each one of these guys. Agnulo is a lighter than Canelo, but not by much. He’s not someone that Canelo can count on to use his weight and power advantage to crush him the way that he did against smaller opposition. For Canelo to be able to get in the trenches with Angulo, he’d have to be willing to take the power shots that Angulo would be nailing him with for 12 rounds. But it doesn’t look like Canelo is too game for tasting Angulo’s power and trying to win a fight like that.

Angulo has suffered losses to Kermit Cintron and most recently Erislandy Lara; both of which used movement to keep from getting nailed by Angulo’s hard shots. It worked for Cintron, because he was able to win a close 12 round decision five years ago over Angulo. But for Lara, he still took a lot of punishment from Angulo due to him cutting off the ring on him and forcing him to fight it out. Lara ended up stopping Angulo in the 10th round last June after his right eye swelled up, but Angulo was on his way to winning the fight if not for the injury. Canelo doesn’t move nearly as well as Lara does, so hopefully Canelo is planning on slugging it out with Angulo as well, because he may have no other choice.

This fight could end up a lot like Angulo’s bout against Gabriel Rosado in 2009. Rosado got in close with Angulo, and was staggered by a powerful shot from him. Angulo then poured it on to halt Rosado in the 2nd round.



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