Canelo’s trainer concerned with Khan’s speed

By Boxing News - 02/04/2016 - Comments

khan111By Tim Fletcher: Chepo Reynoso, the trainer for WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs), feels that Amir Khan’s hand speed is something that they need to be focused on nullifying on May 7, when the 25-year-old Canelo faces Khan in Las Vegas, Nevada. Reynoso notes that Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao didn’t want to face Khan due to his difficult fighting style that could give anyone problems.

Reynoso doesn’t see the 29-year-old Khan as being at a great weight disadvantage in this contest against Canele, because he believes that Khan was on the verge of moving up to junior middleweight anyway due to his problems in making the 147lb weight limit in his last fight against Chris Algieri last year in May.

Khan walks around in the low 160s in between fights. He definitely has the size to compete with Canelo in this fight. This isn’t football or wrestling. It’s a fight, and Khan could very well pull off an upset if he can follow the blueprint that was created by Floyd Mayweather Jr. He showed that you don’t need to be as big or as powerful as Canelo in order to beat him, and make him look bad in the process. Canelo is a flawed fighter in many ways, as we’ve seen with his poor efforts against Mayweather, Austin Trout and Erislandy Lara.

“We chose Khan because it’s one of the most attractive fights out there at the moment,” Reynoso said to ESPNdeportes.com. “Khan is a very fast fighter who neither Floyd Mayweather nor Manny Pacquiao wanted to give a chance, and we’re doing it.”

It’s true that Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. didn’t want to tangle with Khan. Neither of those fighters ever gave any concrete reasons why they opted not to fight Khan, but it could be that they did not want to deal with his movement as well as his hand speed.

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Khan is a mobile fighter, and he is not easy to hit when he is on the move. However, he wasn’t nearly as mobile in his last fight against Chris Algieri compared to some of his earlier fights. But it could be that Khan didn’t use movement against Algieri because he knew he was facing a lighter puncher that wasn’t much of a threat to hurting him like other fighters had been.

“Yes, his [Khan] speed can be dangerous, but Khan is not only fast, he’s a thinking fighter,” Reynoso said. “He works the angles well in the ring, but fortunately there’s time to work on preparation and compete on speed. Canelo is also a fast fighter, so hopefully we can nullify what appears to be an advantage for Khan.”

Canelo is a fast fighter for a middleweight, but he is not fast for a welterweight like Khan. We saw how much faster Floyd Mayweather Jr. was in comparison to Canelo in their fight in 2013. While Canelo did show good hand speed in his fight against Mayweather, he wasn’t on the same level as him, and that’s one of the reasons why Mayweather was able to outbox Canelo with relative easy. Mayweather kept hitting Canelo with fast right hands and jabs each time he attempted to apply pressure on him in their fight three years ago.

There will be a press tour for the Canelo-Khan fight that will be hitting four countries. It’ll be in the U.S, England, Puerto Rico and Mexico. It’s interesting that the press tour will visit Puerto Rico, because neither fighter is Puerto Rican. This suggests that Golden Boy Promotions will be adding a Puerto Rican fighter on the undercard, possibly in the co-feature bout. The press tour is going to be larger than some of Canelo’s other fights, and it gives a good indication that Golden Boy believes this fight will bring in big numbers on HBO PPV.

It wouldn’t be surprising if the Canelo-Khan fight turns out to be the second largest fight of 2016 behind the Canelo vs. Gennady Golovkin fight if that takes place. Khan could act as the spoiler to make sure that there isn’t a Canelo-Golovkin fight by beating Canelo to prevent that contest from taking place. A rematch between Khan and Canelo would likely bring in huge numbers.



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