By Dan Ambrose: Amir “King” Khan believes Saul “Canelo” Alvarez will be making a grave error in judgement if he chooses to bulk up for their May 7 fight and try to crush him with his size and power. Khan feels that his own speed will neutralize Canelo’s size, and he’ll end up out-boxing him in their fight on HBO pay-per-view.
For all Canelo’s size, Khan doesn’t see him as that much bigger puncher than himself. Khan says Canelo is just a bigger fighter with more muscle weight, but not better skills or necessarily that much better power.
The one thing Canelo’s superior weight advantage helps him with is absorbing shots to the head and body. Canelo seems to be able to take shots better with his heavy size. We saw that in Canelo’s last fight against Miguel Cotto in which the 160+lb Cotto was landing his shots against the much bigger Canelo and having no effect on him.
Canelo looked like he had a 20lb weight advantage over Cotto, which would mean Canelo came into the fight in the 180s. We’ll never know for sure what weight Canelo was on that night because he wasn’t weighed by HBO before he stepped into the ring.
“Look, if he [Canelo] wants to come into this fight super heavy thinking that’s how he’s going to catch me with a big shot and he’s going to hurt me, then I think he’s got something else coming,” said Khan to Fighthype. “He has to be quick on his feet. He’ll have to be lighter than he is. If he wants to be heavy and he thinks this is going to work on his side, then I think he might be making a big mistake,” said Khan.
I don’t think Canelo has any choice but to come into the fight as big as a house for the Khan fight. I don’t think Canelo can burn down to lower weights anymore. If Canelo does use this training camp to burn off some of his muscle weight, it’s going to weaken him. Canelo is naturally a very, very big guy and arguably should be fighting in the super middleweight division right now.
Canelo doesn’t have fat to burn off to get down to a lighter weight like some fighters. So if Canelo does lose weight to get quicker, it’ll be muscle weight, and that’s going to make him weaker. I think Canelo is stuck at the weight that he is now. I expect Canelo to come into the fight in the 180s, and try and use his size to hammer Khan out of there.
Canelo will be a lot slower than Khan, but I think he’s going to be working on cutting off the ring on him and cornering him. With Canelo’s heavy size, Khan’s shots to the head and body will bounce off and have little effect. The only thing that Khan can count on doing is possibly cutting Canelo’s face around his eyes, bloodying his nose, and closing one or both eyes. The judges can’t ignore stuff like that.
I think Khan’s lighter shots won’t impress the judges. It’ll be like when Erislandy Lara and Austin Trout fought Canelo. They were landing more often than Canelo, but the judges only focused on Canelo’s harder landing shots. That’s why Khan will need to mess up Canelo’s face in the fight so that even a judge with bad eyesight won’t be able to miss what’s going on in the ring.
“Yeah, I think he might try and come in light and a little faster, thinking that power is going to stay with him,” said Khan. “He might want to get to me a little quicker, because he knows I have good footwork and decent speed. So he might want to match my footwork and my speed, which I do not think he will. He might have a little bit more power, but that’s it really. Other than that, I think I have a lot more advantages in this fight going into the fight,” Khan said.
I think Canelo going to focus on his size for this fight rather than trying to get down to a lighter weight. Canelo has the confidence from his last fight against the lighter Cotto, and he likely figures that his size will help him against Khan too. Cotto was too light to do anything with Canelo, and that was really the only reason Canelo won.
If the two fighters were the same size, then Cotto would have easily own because the was the better fighter of the two. Canelo was just bigger and heavier. Watching the Canelo-Cotto fight reminded me of some of Julio Cesar Chavez Jr’s old fights when he was fighting in the middleweight division.
Chavez Jr. would boil down in weight to make the middleweight limit at 160, and then rehydrate up in weight to look like a cruiserweight by the time the fight started. There was no way that Chavez Jr’s lighter opponents could deal with his size. I see Canelo as the next Chavez Jr. at middleweight, and I only see Canelo doing well while he can still make the 160lb limit. Once he can no longer boil down to make the limit for the division, then I see trouble ahead for Canelo.
“The only two things he has is the power and the weight,” said Khan. “But I think if he comes into the fight heavy, I think he’ll be making mistakes for himself. If he wants to come into this fight light, then he might be a little bit weaker. It just depends in how he comes into the fight. Whatever he does in this fight, we’re going to be ready for. If he wants to come in light, we’re going to be ready for a quick Canelo. If he wants to come in heavy, we’re going to be ready for a strong Canelo,” said Khan.
Khan will need to focus on his speed for this fight, because he’s not going to be able to stay in the pocket against Canelo, not with him weighing possibly in the 180s. If Khan comes into the fight at 160 like he says he might, then Canelo could still have a 20lb weight advantage if he rehydrates to 185. I don’t know how Canelo can boil down 30 pounds to get to 155, but more power to him if he does come in at that weight. I don’t think it’s the healthiest thing to do, but it might help him beat Khan.
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