By Dan Ambrose: Freddie Roach, the trainer for WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (40-4, 33 KOs), says he’s seen how Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs) trains and he feels that he’s not the most dedicated guy there is in the gym. Canelo, 25, trained for three fights in the past at Roach’s Wildcard Gym in Las Angeles, California.
During that time, Roach saw how Canelo went out his training at his gym, and needles to say, Roach wasn’t impressed with the effort that he put out. Canelo will be fighting Cotto next month on HBO pay-per-view from the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Roach expects Canelo to put in a strong effort in the early rounds when he’s freshest and clearly at his best, but then in the second of the fight he sees it a different fight.
Canelo’s lack of dedication might be one of the reasons why he turns red in the face and tires out quickly in his fights when he exerts himself a little bit. Of course, another reason for Canelo’s poor stamina likely has a lot to do with him draining down from 175 to fight at 155.
That’s 20 pounds of water weight that Canelo has to take off for him to make weight. He says he’s not a middleweight, but when you weigh 175, you’re clearly a middleweight. Boxer Gabriel Rosado thinks that the reason why Canelo tries to say he needs to fight at 155 is so that he has an excuse not to face the bigger middleweights.
By Rosado saying the bigger middleweights, I presume he’s talking about guys the same weight as Canelo, because there aren’t too many middleweights that rehydrate 20+ pounds for their fights at the upper tier of the division. When fighters start needing to take off 20 pounds of water weight to make weight, they usually move up in weight rather than putting their body through the ordeal of taking all that weight off.
“I think the early rounds will be a little bit tough, but I think that favors us a little bit,” Roach said to Fighthub about Cotto’s fight against Canelo on 11/21. “I want him [Cotto] to have enough energy at the end to knock this guy out and save that power for a little bit later. He [Canelo] does put pressure on early, and that’s something we’re going to have to deal with. We’re up for that game plan already and we’re a lot more mobile than what people think. I think we’re going to have great success in this fight. I’ve got a lot of incite to his [Canelo] training camps. He trained in my gym for three fights. I don’t think he’s the most dedicated guy in the world. We’ll do anything to win. That’s what Miguel is all about. So he’ll sacrifice anything to win,” Roach said.
I’d like to see how Canelo would train if he had Roach as his trainer. I wonder if Canelo would be taking breaks like Julio Cesar Chavez Jr or not training as hard as he should be for his fights. Roach would then be stuck having to try and encourage Canelo to train hard.
“Maybe Triple G is next,” Roach said. “We both say ‘why not?’ The thing is there is a lot of negotiations that gone on after that. I don’t like catch-weights. I think we should fight at 160,” Roach said.
Roach says he doesn’t like catch-weights, but it’s a different story with Cotto and Canelo. They evidently do like them. I see Cotto giving Golovkin a take it or leave offer to fight him at a catch-weight of 155lbs or get lost.
Comments are closed.