Canelo with a lot to prove against Angulo

By Boxing News - 02/22/2014 - Comments

By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions has selected an opponent that they feel confidence that former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-1-1, 30 KO’s) can beat in Alfredo Angulo (22-3, 18 KO’s) on March 8th while looking good in the process on Showtime pay-per-view. But there’s a lot of unknowns that go into this fight for the flat-footed Canelo, because he’s really been shielded badly from facing opposition his own size during his 9-year pro career.

Golden Boy has seemingly gone out of their way to make sure that Canelo is in with opposition that is smaller than him, and you have to think it’s by design rather than by accident. You see Canelo being matched against a welterweight Matthew Hatton when he fought for the vacant WBC junior middleweight title, and then Canelo faces more welterweights when defending his title against Kermit Contron, Alfonso Gomez, Josesito Lopez and Floyd Mayweather Jr. Angulo is one of the few guys that Canelo has fought who is an actual junior middleweight, but he’s coming off of a knockout loss, so it’s not like Canelo is in with a seriously dangerous opponent.

The main reason that Angulo has a chance to win this fight is because we just haven’t seen Canelo being matched up against guys in the 154 lb division that can punch in the rare fights where he’s been in with a legitimate junior middleweight. Canelo has fought the following junior middleweights: Ryan Rhodes and Austin Trout. It’s just two of them. Neither of them are big punchers, and both deeply flawed. Canelo stopped Rhodes in the 12th round, and then struggled to beat Trout by what should have been a narrow decision instead of the wide scores the judges gave Canelo in their fight in San Antonio, Texas.

Canelo’s stamina problems could resurface in this fight with the pressure that Angulo is going to be putting on him. Angulo’s trainer Virgil Hunter realizes that Canelo doesn’t have good stamina, and he feels that he’ll never good stamina. He just sees this as a flaw with Canelo that he won’t be able to fix, and he’s probably right. A 23-year-old fighter like Canelo is supposed to be in his prime in terms of his condition, and the fact that he’s turning red-faced and needing to rest against the ropes frequently tells you that there’s a serious problem that likely won’t get better.

It’s all downhill for Canelo at this point as far as his stamina goes, and Angulo can take advantage of that if he’s smart and is able to put a lot of pressure on him. For Angulo to do that, he’s going to need to be able to take Canelo’s best shots the way that he did in his fight with Erislandy Lara. But the payoff will be good for Angulo, because Canelo is like a battery that gets worn down when he’s forced to fight for three minutes of every round.



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