By Scott Gilfoid: Amir Khan’s trainer Virgil Hunter says they’re going to study tape from the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fight from 2013 to learn what Mayweather did to defeat Canelo by a 12 round decision.
Hunter wants Khan to use what Mayweather employed in beating the heavy-bodied Canelo by a decision. Hunter believes that Khan do the same thing that Mayweather did because he’s got the hand speed, better size and better punching power than Mayweather.
Mayweather beat Canelo by using his jab frequently and throwing fast right hand pot shots. Mayweather’s quick reflexes enabled him to get out of the way of Canelo’s counter shots all night long.
When Canelo did come forward looking to put pressure on Mayweather, he simply moved laterally around the ring to prevent Canelo from being able to land his big power shots. In a nutshell, this is all Mayweather had to do in order to win an easy 12 round decision. The was scored a majority decision because one of the judges C.J. Ross scored the fight a draw 114-114 for some odd reason.
“Amir is bigger than Floyd, longer and at this time, I know when he’s in good shape, his tank is much fuller because of his age,” said Hunter to skysports.com. “But definitely that’s the fight you want to look at and see where you can capitalize on, but also add a few edges to it that maybe Floyd didn’t do that night because he had control of that fight from very early.”
Khan can move as well as Mayweather, and he’s got faster hands than him. Where Khan comes up short is his reflexes to get out of the way of incoming shots. Khan isn’t nearly as good as Mayweather in detecting when punches are being thrown at him. This means that for Khan to win the fight against Canelo, he’s going to need to be focusing on his defense much of the time.
It would help if Khan could lean backwards when throwing shots or simply when on the outside. Canelo is going to be looking to throw body shots like he did in his fight against Erislandy Lara. The judges might give Canelo rounds even if all he lands is a handful of body shots. With the weight and power that Canelo has behind his shots, he’ll be able to impress the judges better than Khan unless we Khan landing a lot more punches than him.
“Amir also possesses enough pop to keep him honest,” Hunter said. “When I tell him what can get him in danger or create a problem, I think he has a very great chance of winning the fight.”
Canelo doesn’t like to get hit with fast shots to the head. I think Khan could possibly make Canelo go into a defensive mode like he did in the Mayweather and Austin Trout fights. I mean, I don’t see it happening that way, but there is a possibility of Khan forcing a reaction like that from Canelo if he’s able to land a lot of fast head-snapping shots the way that Mayweather was doing against Canelo.
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