Canelo: I feel very strong at this weight

By Boxing News - 11/22/2015 - Comments

canelo998333333By Dan Ambrose: It might prove very difficult to get WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) to move away from his own special weight class of 155lbs that he’s been fighting at for his last four fights, as he says he feels very strong at this specific weight and he makes it easily for some reason.

Oddly enough, Canelo isn’t showing signs of being weakened despite him rehydrating to the mid-170s for his fights. Last Saturday, Canelo didn’t elect to be weighed before his fight against Miguel Cotto (40-5, 33 KOs), but needless to say, he looked positively huge compared to the Puerto Rican fighter, and arguably the biggest he’s been in his entire career.

Canelo used his size advantage to beat Cotto by a 12 round unanimous decision to win the WBC middleweight title at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

“I feel really good, very strong at this weight. I can make the weight easily and the results are there. This is my weight class,” Canelo said via Fightnews.com.

155 = middleweight, but the division goes all the way up to 160. While it may not be hardship for Canelo to melt down from the 170s to fight at 155, it’s definitely hard for a lot of other fighters to do that. But what’s unclear is why would Canelo even need a catch-weight of 155lbs if he’s rehydrating into the 170s? Is it worry on his part that he can’t compete with middleweights his own size without an advantage over them, or does he really feel that he’s not a true middleweight?

I don’t know of too many top middleweights that rehydrate beyond the mid-170s. Once fighters go past that weight, they tend to get weight drained in dropping all that weight to get down to the 160lb limit.

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“I felt I had him [Cotto] in the first round, I felt superior to him. I was stronger than him, I was able to move around very, very well and control the fight,” Canelo said about Cotto. “I felt I was winning the fight. I made him miss a lot. From the opening bell I felt I had the advantage and was going to win the fight…I wanted a clear victory. I didn’t want any doubts.”

Canelo’s size and punching power was very apparent in the early rounds of the fight. Cotto didn’t look like he belonged in there with Canelo due to the size difference. In hindsight, Cotto perhaps made a critical error by not negotiating for a rehydration limit for the fight. If he could have kept Canelo from rehydrating past 167, he might have done a lot better in the fight.

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At least that way, he would have only been out-weighed by a smaller amount of weight. I doubt that Canelo would have ever agreed to a rehydration limit though, because it would have been very hard for him to keep from gaining back all the water weight that he’d lost. But it would have likely been difficult for him to face someone that he didn’t have a huge size advantage over them. When a fighter gets accustomed to being the bigger fighter, it’s got to be difficult for them to suddenly face an opponent that is the same weight as them.

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