Canelo: The Mayweather fight helped me improve

By Boxing News - 10/20/2015 - Comments

1-cotto-canelo-m (9)By Dan Ambrose: Despite getting beaten by Floyd Mayweather Jr two years ago by a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision, former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs) thinks that the defeat helped improve him as a fighter.

Just how it helped the 25-year-old Canelo improve is the big question. Canelo didn’t look improved at all in his subsequent fights against Erislandy Lara, Alfredo Angulo and James Kirkland. The only difference is Canelo was facing lesser fighters.

Canelo was arguably beaten by Lara in winning a controversial decision over the Cuban in July of 2014. Canelo ran out of gas early in his fight against James Kirkland. Canelo had punched himself out in the 2nd round.

“The rematch was offered [against Mayweather] and nothing happened,” Canelo said to ESPN Deportes. “I believe that was in the past, but that fight really helped me improve and move forward in my career. So I keep looking ahead,” Canelo said.

Canelo had better hope that the loss to Mayweather has improved him because he’s going to need to be improved for him to beat WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (40-4, 33 KOs) in their fight on November 21st at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

From what I’ve seen of Canelo’s last three fights, I see no improvement at all in his game. He’s fighting with the same style as before, and nothing has changed. Canelo’s punching power, hand speed and stamina did not improve. Canelo still can’t cut off the ring against a mobile opponent due to his slow feet, and he still turns red in the face when he’s forced to move a lot.

There’s no improvement at all in Canelo’s game as far as I can see. If anything, I think Canelo is starting to slow up more because he’s put on more bulk since the Mayweather fight. Canelo rehydrated into the mid-160s for the Mayweather fight. But now Canelo is rehydrating to the mid-170s. Canelo’s stamina doesn’t look as good as it was back then.

I’m not even sure how much longer Canelo can keep draining down to fight at his own special weight class at 155 with his catch-weight fights that he’s been doing on a consistent basis for the past two years since his loss to Mayweather.

There’s only so many times that a fighter can drain down in weight 20 pounds without getting diminishing returns to where it actually hurts your body and performance to lose that much weight and quickly put it back on 24 hours before the fight.

With Canelo rehydrating to 175, he really needs to be fighting in the middleweight division rather than at junior middleweight. I know he doesn’t want to do this because he says he can still make the weight for the 154lb class, and is short at 5’9”, but I think that’s the best thing for him.

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“He [Cotto] is a great fighter, who likes to go forward,” Canelo said about Cotto. “He knows very well how to combine his punches up and down, and is also very strong. We must be very well prepared to face him.”



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