By Dan Ambrose: Former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. is picking Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs) to defeat WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (40-4, 33 KOs) in their fight next month on November 21st. Chavez Jr. says he’s picking Canelo to win due to him being Mexican, younger and because he simply doesn’t like the 34-year-old Cotto very much for some reason.
Chavez Jr. points out that Cotto fights in catch-weights against guys who aren’t very good against fights that are basically showcase mismatches where the entire world knows who’s going to win the fight.
What’s interesting about Chavez Jr’s opinions about Cotto is that he’s describing Canelo to the tee. He fights at catch-weights, against guys that aren’t very good.
“I pick Canelo [to win] because he’s a Mexican, he’s younger and I don’t like too much…Cotto,” Chavez said to fighthubtv.com.
Picking Canelo to win for those reasons seems kind of surficial to me. Shouldn’t Chavez Jr. have some better reasons to pick Canelo to win besides those reasons?
“He fights not good fighters, all catch-weights. He fights where the people [already] know who is going to win,” Chavez Jr. said. “He needs to fight [people] like Canelo, like Lara, Andrade. All these fighters are better than this guy (Cotto).”
I think Cotto is going to expose Canelo in the same way that Floyd Mayweather Jr, Erislandy Lara and Austin Trout did.
Canelo has been fighting soft opposition just like Cotto has recently. Apart from three fights, Canelo has fought soft opposition most of his career. The only good fighters that Canelo has fought since he turned pro are Floyd Mayweather Jr, Erislandy Lara and Austin Trout. You can make an argument that Canelo lost all three of those fights.
I had Canelo losing to all of those guys, but I think he got two gift decisions over Lara and Trout. Instead of Canelo having a 45-1 record, I think he should have a 43-3 record. The other fighters that Canelo has fought have been old guys like Alfredo Angulo, Shane Mosley and James Kirkland.
He’s also fought a lot of flawed fighters like Matthew Hatton, Alfonso Gomez, Kermit Cintron, Josesito Lopez, Ryan Rhodes, Lovemore N’Dou, Carlos Baldomir adnd Luciano Leonel Cuello. Believe it or not, those guys are the best that Canelo has fought. Like I said, he’s only faced three good fighters in his career and I had him losing all three of the fights.
Chavez Jr’s once promising career appears to have really gone downhill since 2012. He was beaten by Sergio Martinez. Chavez Jr. has a controversial 10 round decision win over Brian Vera in their first fight, and he was stopped by Andrzej Fonfara in the 10th round earlier this year in April.
In Chavez Jr’s last fight, he beat Marco Reyes by a controversial 10 round decision last July in a fight that a lot of fans thought Chavez Jr. lost. He looked terrible in that fight and even worse against Fonfrara. At 29, Chavez Jr. is pretty much over-the-hill. I can’t see him coming back to turn his career around to amount to something in the super middleweight division.
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