De La Hoya: Canelo will never fight Mayweather again

By Boxing News - 11/15/2015 - Comments

delahoya111By Dan Ambrose: Oscar De La Hoya says Floyd Mayweather Jr. will never face his flagship fighter former WBA/WBC 154lb champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez again, because he says it would be a much different situation than in their previous fight in 2013 due to Canelo being older, stronger, faster and wiser. Of course, it may be academic after next Saturday if Canelo loses to WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto in their fight on HBO pay-per-view from the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

De La Hoya says Canelo has developed his man strength now at age 25, and he just doesn’t see Mayweather ever agreeing to fight him now due to him being an improved fighter. Even the negotiations would be different, De La Hoya said. He didn’t say what would be different about them, but you can surmise that Canelo would likely ask for a bigger slice of the financial pie in a second fight with Mayweather.

One area that De La Hoya believes would be different in a second Canelo vs. Mayweather fight is Canelo’s aggressiveness. Canelo made the mistake of trying to box Mayweather two years ago, and this resulted in Mayweather easily winning the fight. However, even when Canelo started applying pressure on Mayweather starting in the 9th round, the fight was still dominated by Mayweather.

“Everything would be very different from the negotiations to the fight,” De La Hoya said to fighthype about a potential rematch between Canelo and Mayweather. “I tell you one thing. It will never happen [a rematch between Canelo and Mayweather]. Come on, Canelo’s a man now. He’s not a boy. Canelo has come into his man strength. The experience he has. Canelo is faster. He’s wiser. That Mayweather fight he had. He learned so much. You can’t box a boxer. You can’t do that. If you take a look at Canelo’s fights; he’s now being very aggressive. He’s knocking people out. [Erislandy] Lara was the perfect example. He chased Lara around like no tomorrow. There’s an audience for Mayweather’s style, but there’s a bigger audience for brawlers for excitement, for action,” De La Hoya said.

De La Hoya doesn’t need to worry about a rematch between Canelo and Mayweather, because I think it’s safe to say that there won’t be a second fight. The boxing public wouldn’t be interested in seeing a second fight between them due to the first fight being so one-sided. Mayweather wouldn’t be foolish enough to even bother trying to fight Canelo again. It wouldn’t be worth Mayweather’s trouble in taking the fight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLSDe2Kizf4&oref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DFLSDe2Kizf4&has_verified=1

Mayweather would be dumped on by the boxing community if he fought the red-haired Canelo again for a second time. It would be bad enough if Mayweather fought Manny Pacquiao in a rematch, but at least Pacquiao has an excuse for looking so bad due to him coming into the fight with a torn right rotator cuff injury. Canelo doesn’t have any excuse for looking bad other than being young, fighting the wrong game plan and supposedly being weight drained.

This past week, De La Hoya blamed Canelo’s loss to Mayweather on him being too young at the time at age 23, and being weight drained due to Mayweather asking him to fight at a catch-weight of 152lbs. Canelo rehydrated to close to 170lbs at fight time, and enjoyed a 15 pound weight advantage.

As far as I can tell, Canelo hasn’t improved at all since his loss to Mayweather. In Canelo’s fights against Erislandy Lara, Alfredo Angulo and James Kirkland, he’s looked flat-footed, and struggled at trying to cut off the ring. Lara made Canelo look really bad in their fight in July 2014, and appeared to beat him by a close decision.

The judges gave the win to Canelo, but a lot of boxing fans felt that Lara had done enough to deserve the decision. I don’t see any improvement in Canelo’s came. He’s still slow and still unable to make adjustments. The only difference is that in two out of Canelo’s last three fights, he’s faced weak opposition against the washed up Angulo and Kirkland. Those guys are no longer relevant fighters, and it made no sense at all that De La Hoya matched Canelo up against those fighters instead of relevant guys like Jermall Charlo.

Canelo will be facing WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (40-4, 33 KOs) this Saturday night on HBO pay-per-view at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. If Cotto’s trainer Freddie Roach has studied Canelo’s fights against Mayweather and Lara enough, he’ll note how Cotto can easily get the better of Canelo by using movement.



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