Canelo doesn’t think Cotto has an experience advantage over him

By Boxing News - 08/27/2015 - Comments

Image: Canelo doesn’t think Cotto has an experience advantage over himBy Dan Ambrose: When you look at the resumes of WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (40-4, 33 KOs) and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs) what immediately jumps out at you is the experience advantage that the 34-year-old Cotto has over the 25-year-old Canelo in terms of the opposition he’s faced during his career.

Canelo doesn’t believe that Cotto has an experience advantage over him despite him having been a pro career that has lasted five years shorter. Cotto had a long and successful amateur career, whereas Canelo didn’t have one.

“I might be a young fighter but I also have a lot of experience so I don’t think it’s an advantage for either side. We are both going to prepare well and whoever is better prepared will win,” Canelo said via thaboxingvoice.com.

That overconfidence could get Canelo knocked out on November 21st by Cotto when they meet up at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. At 25, Canelo seems to feel he’s at the top of the world, and we’ve seen what has happened to him in the past when he’s stepped up and gotten schooled by Floyd Mayweather Jr. We also saw how Canelo showed no improvement in his fight against Erislandy Lara last year. That was the fight that can consider Canelo’s last true fight, because his recent bout against James Kirkland wasn’t a good enough opponent to get much from that fight.

“We are going to analyze videos of everything. The wins, the losses. Everything. That’s how we’re going to come up with our game plan. If I can utilize anything, I’ll utilize it,” Canelo said.

Canelo can study Cotto all he wants, but if he doesn’t show improvement over his last handful of fights, then I can’t see him beating Cotto. Canelo just doesn’t seem to have the basic boxing IQ to do the job on a fighter with the intelligence that Cotto has going for him. The experience doesn’t matter.

Canelo could have more experience than Cotto, and I still think Cotto would win the fight because he’s the smarter fighter in the ring. We saw how Cotto did a better job than Canelo did in his fight with Mayweather. It wasn’t even close. Canelo was totally schooled by Mayweather in their fight in 2013. Cotto almost beat Mayweather in their fight in 2012. Cotto had Mayweather almost beat if he hadn’t run out of gas in the last four rounds of the fight. With Canelo, he was badly schooled from the 1st round, and he never was able to figure out what to do with Mayweather. That was Cotto before he had even started training with Freddie Roach. Now that he’s with Roach, Cotto is an even better fighter than he was in the past.

“There are no secrets – I’ve been fighting around 154lbs and 155lbs so I feel comfortable at this weight. This is my weight class,” Canelo said.

Cotto’s weight is actually better for this fight than it is for Canelo, because the 155lb catch-weight that Cotto and Calelo will be using for this fight is within five pounds of where Cotto will be for this fight after he rehydrates.

With Canelo, he’s likely going to rehydrate to 175 after making weight at 155. That means he’s going to need to drain 20 pounds of water weight and put it back on overnight. That’s not smart at all. In fact, I think it’s foolish, because Canelo should be fighting at 160 given how heavy he is. Gennady Golovkin fights at the full weight for the middleweight division at 160, and he then rehydrates to 170. Canelo is fighting at 155, and then rehydrating to 175 at the most. It’s clear that Canelo should be fighting at 160, not 155. If Canelo was fighting at the right weight for his body, then maybe he wouldn’t have the stamina problems that he’s been having in his fights.



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