By Dan Ambrose: Mexican stars Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. checked in at the second stop of their 4-city International press tour on Tuesday in New York to talk about their big fight on May 6 on HBO pay-per-view. Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya was in fine form in talking about how a Golden Boy Promotions poll has the boxing fans predicting a knockout in the Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight by 99.9%.
De La Hoya didn’t say who the fans were predicting would be the one that gets knocked out, but if you put his feet to the fire, he would likely say Chavez Jr.
(Photo Credit: Rich/Golden Boy Promotions)
Chavez Jr. still looks a little flabby around the chin area. He says he’s weighing 180 pounds. If this is his real weight, then he looks like he’s going to need to drop at least 10 pounds of fat to get rid of his double chin that he’s starting to sport. The problem with Chavez Jr. getting down to 170lbs is he’ll be outweighed by Canelo, who could come into the fight in the 180s on May 6 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
There are already a lot of boxing fans who believe that Canelo rehydrates to the 180s for his catch-weight fights at 155. With Canelo now having another 9 ½ pounds to play with in the 164 ½ lb. catch-weight for the Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight, we could see Canelo easily coming into the fight in the 180s. That’s bad news for Chavez Jr. if he lets his weight get down too low, because Canelo will have the weight advantage and he’ll be like a little tank.
We saw how Miguel Cotto’s punches bounced off the head of Canelo with no effect at all on him in their fight in November 2015. One of the reasons for that is Cotto came into the fight at 164 lbs. after he rehydrated after making the 155 lb. catch-weight. Canelo looked at least 20 lbs. heavier than Cotto. Fredie Roach, the trainer for Cotto, believed that Canelo rehydrated 30 pounds after making the 155lb limit. Chavez Jr. cannot let himself get too light for the fight with Canelo, otherwise he could wind up like Cotto with his punches not being able to hurt the red-headed star.
“You have the biggest star in boxing today with Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez and then you have Julio César Chávez, Jr., the son of one of Mexico’s greatest fighters ever,” said De La Hoya at Tuesday press tour stop in New York. ”We took a poll and there is a 99.9 percent chance this fight will end in a knock out. That’s what fans want to see, that’s why we made this fight, for the fans.”
If Canelo is the one that winds up getting knocked out in this fight, it’s going to be a really big disappointment to Golden Boy Promotions. We could see a drop off of Canelo’s PPV buys from the 300,000 he just received in his fight against Liam Smith to much lower than that. Chavez Jr. is probably seen as a safe fight for Canelo. Chavez Jr. might still have too much left in the tank for him to be a sure thing win for Canelo.
There’s perhaps a better chance that Canelo vs. Chavez Jr. will go the full 12 round distance, because Chavez Jr. has a good chin, and he’s not going to quit on his stool like he did against Andrzej Fonfara in 2015. Even if Chavez Jr. takes a beating in this fight, I don’t think he’s going to quit.
I think a lot of fans would disagree with De La Hoya about Canelo being the “biggest star in boxing today.” Canelo is still pretty close to Manny Pacquiao in terms of popularity. Canelo hasn’t really moved past Pacquiao. Both fighters have recently brought in 300,000 pay-per-view buys in their last fights.
Pacquiao fought Jessie Vargas, while Canelo fought Liam Smith. The fights that Canelo pulled in a respectable number of PPV buys were against Amir Khan and Cotto. Canelo pulled in 900,000 buys against Cotto and 600,000 against Khan. Pacquiao could probably bring in similar numbers if he fought those two fighters.
“This is going to be a very hard fight, a difficult fight because it will be at a new weight,” said Canelo.
Canelo might not be at too much of a new weight for him. He’s been rehydrating into the 170s, possibly into the 180s. What’s going to be new for Canelo is getting hit by a fighter the size of Chavez Jr. That’s going to be a new experience.
Chavez Jr. has got to improve his hand speed, because he looked very slow in his last fight against Dominik Britsch from last December. Chavez Jr. moved slowly round the ring, crowding Britsch and bending forward directly in front of him to get in position to throw his body shots. Chavez Jr. was there to be hit if Britsch had wanted to hit him.
Chavez Jr. cannot afford to do that against Canelo, because he’ll get hit too much. If Chavez Jr. is going to crowd Canelo, then he’ll need to throw his punches immediately as soon as he gets in close. Chavez Jr. was waiting far too much in the Britisch fight before letting his hands go.