O’Sullivan wants Canelo vs. Smith winner

By Boxing News - 07/06/2016 - Comments

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By Scott Gilfoid: #13 WBA fringe middleweight contender Gary “Spike” O’Sullivan (22-2, 15 KOs) says he’d like to fight the winner of the September 17 fight between Mexican star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (47-1-1, 33 KOs) and WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith. O’Sullivan, 31, hasn’t fought since being stopped in the 7th round by Chris Eubank Jr. last December in a WBA 160lb title eliminator bout.

O’Sullivan suffered an ear injury in that fight that he’s been dealing with. For O’Sullivan to get the winner of the Canelo-Smith fight, he would need to drop down to junior middleweight to take the clash.

O’Sullvian would also probably need Smith to be the winner of that match, because Canelo surely wouldn’t bother fighting a little known guy coming off a stoppage loss to Eubank Jr.

“I was going to look toward a Liam Smith fight, we all want to fight for world titles,” said O’Sullivan to Irish-boxing.com. “I would love the winner of Smith and that Mexican [Canelo] that thinks he’s Irish. People are writing Smith off, but he’s unbeaten, tough and game. If Smith wins I would relish the opportunity to fight him. Then again, imagine fighting the Irish-looking guy in Mexico.”

If O’Sullivan wants to chase the winner of the Canelo vs. Smith fight, then he needs to drop down to junior middleweight straightaway and look to pick up a valuable scalp off a talent like Demetrius Andrade or Julian Williams. Those are about the only guys that I could see O’Sullivan getting a fight against in terms of top contenders.

The thing is, I don’t see it ending well for O’Sullivan if he does fight a top guy at junior middleweight. Heck, I don’t think O’Sullivan could beat any of the bottom feeders in the top 15, because he seems to have stamina issues judging by his last fight against Eubank Jr. O’Sullivan looked decent for four rounds, and then went into the shutdown mode and stopped punching. It was then completely one-sided from that point on with Eubank Jr. having his way.

Canelo is a clear favorite to defeat Smith. About the only chance I think Smith has is if he can push a fast pace in the early part of the fight, and then turn it up a notch in the second half of the contest. Canelo has stamina issues and Smith could take advantage of that if he’s able to push a fast pace for 12 rounds.

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I think Canelo will win the fight based on weight and size. Canelo is a big middleweight with the ability to cut weight to fight at 154 and 155. It’s pretty incredible the Canelo can lose and put weight on quickly for his fights. If Smith comes into the Canelo fight weighing in the low 160s, he’s likely going to be giving away 10 pounds at the very least to Canelo.

That’s probably going to be too much of a size difference for Smith to have a chance of winning, because his shots will bounce off of Canelo without doing damage. That’s why I think Smith needs to focus on throwing nothing but body shots, because that’s the only chance he has of hurting Canelo. He won’t do it by hitting him to the head because he doesn’t have enough wait and power to hurt him there.