(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Dan Ambrose: In an ominous sign for what could spell another disaster for Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (43-1-1, 31 KO’s), an unnamed camp insider is saying that Canelo’s training camp is being run in a disorganized manner with the 23-year-old Canelo calling the shots and not training the way he should be for his July 12th fight against WBA junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara (19-1-2, 12 KO’s).
The word is that Canelo is weighing 168 right now, whereas Lara is just 4 pounds over the 155 pound catch-weight limit for the fight.
The description of how Canelo is training for the Lara fight is reminiscent in some ways of how former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr went about his training for his fight against Sergio Martinez in 2012. Chavez Jr looked like he put in only a token effort in getting ready for that fight, and the results were predictable with him getting totally dominated by Sergio for 11 of the 12 rounds.
Here’s what the Canelo camp insider said via Livefight about the 23-year-old Canelo’s training habits for the Lara fight: “The coach spent a few days in the Alvarez camp but was shocked at the way the gym is ran with Alvarez’s own trainers Jose and Eddy Reynoso allegedly fearful of even approaching the Mexican former world champion. “It’s like Alvarez isn’t even in full training right now. He’s picking and choosing when to train, he’s sending sparring partners home…you can’t even approach him he’s like a child of 16 not a 23-year-old man.”
Is Canelo controlling his training camp like a star instead of a coachable fighter? This sounds bad. A 23-year-old fighter calling the shots despite the fact that he has little in the way of experience against high quality opposition and he failed in his one fight where he fought someone with huge talent in Floyd Mayweather Jr.
If this turns out to be true, we could see Canelo get beaten with ease by Lara just as we did with Canelo getting clowned by Mayweather Jr last September in his loss to the boxing star. In that fight, Canelo came into it with a disastrous game plan of trying to box with Mayweather instead of using his size and power advantage to try and squash the smaller fighter. By the time Canelo did make an adjustment, it was the 9th round and he was hopelessly behind in the fight to the point where he needed a knockout to win.
If Canelo isn’t training the way he should be, then he’s going to lose this fight because Lara is a professional, and capable of making adjustments on the fly much like Mayweather. He’s not someone who will need 9 rounds to slip into plan ‘B’ if his plan ‘A’ isn’t working for him. You can bet that he’ll be making whatever adjustments he needs to depending on what Canelo brings to this fight. But with the slow manner in which Canelo changes game plans, Lara may not need to make any adjustments in this fight, because it could be a very easy fight for him.
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