By Dan Ambrose: Trainer Freddie Roach sees former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KOs) as a pretty boy, and he’s really hoping that he ends up facing his fighter WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (39-4, 32 KOs) in his next fight in early May.
The two fighters’ teams are still currently negotiating the fight, and there’s a good possibility that the fight will get made. Both guys are at a point where they need each other because the alternatives for them aren’t that great in terms of big fights.
“Canelo is a pretty boy, but he won’t be pretty much longer if we [Cotto] fight him,” Roach said via RingTV.com [http://ringtv.craveonline.com/news/374523-video-freddie-roach-on-mayweather-pacquiao-cotto-canelo].
Both Canelo and Cotto will likely take a lot of damage in a fight against each other. The only way I see Canelo escaping taking punishment is if he folds quickly after taking some flush left hooks from Cotto. That’s obviously a real possibility if Canelo foolishly wades in looking to throw body shots like he did in his last two fights against Erislandy Lara and Alfredo Angulo.
Canelo was able to fight that way against those guys because Lara was fighting on the move and Angulo was weight drained and slow. If Canelo fights that way against Cotto, he’ll be standing in front of his wheelhouse and will get nailed by his best left hooks, which is pretty much the best weapon that Cotto has in his arsenal right now.
Roach badly wants the Canelo fight for Cotto because he sees it as a fight that Cotto can win. Roach says he’s studied the 24-year-old Canelo, and he sees him as a young fighter who is still making tons of mistakes with his fighting style. You can’t disagree with Roach on that.
Canelo looked totally flawed against Mayweather and Lara. It doesn’t take a genius to speculate that Cotto could take advantage of many of the same flaws that Canelo showed in those fights, especially if Canelo retreats to the ropes like he did in those fights when tired or playing possum. Canelo’s stamina is suspect and he seems to need to fight against the ropes for a certain amount of time when he’s fighting a hard fight. If he does that against Cotto he’s going to wind up getting blasted to the head and body with some huge shots that I question whether he can take.
Both Canelo and Cotto are fighters that are perfect for each other because they struggle when they face boxers, and they’ve both been exposed more than once. They’re popular because they have huge built in fan bases from their home countries, but obviously they’re not as good as their fan appeal would suggest. If you take Cotto away from a certain type of fighter and make him fight someone good like Mayweather, Austin Trout or Lara, he’s going to struggle badly. The same applies with Canelo.
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