Danny Garcia: Khan has the style to beat Canelo

By Boxing News - 03/17/2016 - Comments

garcia55By Dan Ambrose: WBC welterweight champion Danny Garcia thinks Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) has the perfect style to hand WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) a defeat in their upcoming fight on HBO pay-per-view on May 7.

Garcia sees the 29-year-old Khan as the more talented fighter than the heavier Canelo. Garcia rates Khan as a better fighter than Canelo despite his three previous defeats in his career. What Garcia doesn’t know how Khan will be able to handle the superior size and power of the 25-year-old Canelo, especially in the later rounds of their fight.

Garcia thinks Khan might have problems taking Canelo’s heavy shots in the last part of the fight.

Many boxing fans believe that Khan will start out well in the early rounds, but will slowly fall apart as Canelo starts to land his heavy shots to wear him down. They eventually see Canelo landing a big shot that will badly hurt Khan. Once he is hurt, they feel that Canelo will be too much for Khan and will overwhelm him with punches to get the stoppage win.

“I think Khan has the perfect style to beat Canelo,” said Danny Garcia to Fighthype. “I think Khan has the perfect style. If you talking talent, I think Khan is definitely more talented than Canelo. The only thing can he sustain Canelo’s attack and power? Can he survive in the later round? But I think Khan is going to start good in the fight. If he has a strong finish; if he finishes strong, he has a chance to win the fight. He has to be able to take a big punch. But as far as style, I think he’s got a good style to beat Canelo. But we don’t know if he’s [Khan] physically strong enough,” said Garcia.

Khan does look to be more talented than Canelo. He’s faster, has a better assortment of shots, and moves a lot better.

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If Khan is stronger at the weight, like he has been saying, then he might not fall apart later in the fight. The fights in which Khan has lost where ones which he stood in the pocket and traded with his opponents.

Breidis Prescott and Danny Garcia were both able to stop Khan with big shots when he tried to punch with them. Khan says he’s not going to do that with Canelo because he understands that he’s simply too big for him to take chances in standing in front of him. In Khan’s loss to Lamont Peterson, Khan stood and traded with Peterson for the first four rounds.

When Peterson’s pressure proved to be too much for Khan, he started using movement, pushing and holding to neutralize Peterson’s shots. Despite Khan’s constant movement, Peterson was able to land many body shots against the moving Khan. This led to Khan using a lot of shoving to keep Peterson off. Khan will need to fight a lot better against Canelo, because he will walk him down and give him problems.

The good news for Khan is that Canelo does not cut off the ring nearly as well as Peterson does, so he will have a better chance of getting away from him. It’s going to take more than just movement for Khan to win the fight. He is going to need to be able to throw punches to win. The judges are not going to give Khan the decision if all he is doing is running.

We saw Erislandy Lara move for 12 rounds against Canelo in 2014, and the judges gave Canelo the win. Lara forgot to throw enough punches to impress the judges.

When speaking about whether Khan’s career will be hurt by a loss to Canelo,” Garcia said, “It depends on how he loses. If he gets destroyed, it might set his career back a couple of years. So it depends on how he goes in there and fights,” said Garcia.

If Khan gets wiped out by Canelo, it might not destroy his career, but it’s going to take a while for him to come back from the defeat. Khan might have to put off a big stadium fight against IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook for a year or two until he rebuilds from the setback against Canelo.



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