Alvarez-Angulo: Will Canelo get back to his winning ways on Saturday?

By Boxing News - 03/05/2014 - Comments

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By Allan Fox: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-1-1, 30 KO’s) will be trying to put the past behind him this Saturday night in facing Mexican slugger Alfredo Angulo (22-3, 18 KO’s) on Showtime pay-per-view from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Canelo sees this as a new beginning for him, as he’s going to be applying the lessons he learned from his last fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. and he’ll be making his first PPV fight with him as the star headliner.

Things are set up perfectly for the 23-year-old Canelo too look great in this fight, as long as Angulo doesn’t spoil the party by beating him in front of a nationwide audience.

Canelo needs to stay busy in this fight, and not make the mistake of thinking he can mimic Floyd Mayweather Jr. like he did in his recent 12 round majority decision loss to Mayweather last September. Canelo is a good fighter when he’s using his strengths – power, pressure and inside fighting – but he’s less effective when he tries to box. With that said, Canelo will likely try and box Angulo on Saturday night instead of playing to what he does well by getting in the face of Angulo and beating him at his own game.

Canelo has the offensive skills to obliterate pretty much all of the junior middleweights in the division, and that’s why it was confusing to see Canelo trying to out-box Mayweather and Austin Trout in his last two fights. He would have been better off jumping on both fighters early, and wearing them down with his George Foreman type shots. Canelo’s offense is really best defense, and when he gets caught up in trying to box his opponents, he’s a lot less affective. Canelo can make an easy fight for him much tougher by boxing his opponents instead of using his size to crush them with body shots.

Angulo has the kind of power that can give Canelo problems, but he doesn’t have the hand speed or the stamina. If Canelo walks Angulo down, he can get the better of him with every exchange simply by throwing more shots with him. Angulo doesn’t take shots too well as we’ve seen with his fights against Erislandy Lara and James Kirkland. That’s why Canelo needs to go after Angulo early and throw everything at him in the first few rounds to get him out of there quick without letting him hang around and maybe get lucky later in the fight.



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