By William Mackay: Making his first defense of his World Boxing Council junior middleweight crown, champion Saul Alvarez (36-0-1, 26 KO’s) will be taking on his second consecutive opponent from the UK when he battles number #3 ranked WBC contender Ryan Rhodes (45-4, 31 KO’s) at the Arena VFG in Guadalajara, Mexico. Alvarez, 20, is a relative new comer to the sport compared to the 34-year-old Rhodes, who has been a pro for 16 years going into their fight on June 18th in Mexico.
This is a lot of experience but it also shows how much mileage that Rhodes has on the odometer. He’s been around for a long, long time and it’s too bad that it’s taken him so long to get a title shot. Perhaps if Alvarez had been given a chance earlier in his career against a weaker punching champion he might have won a title by now. However, Rhodes is facing the wrong guy for him to have any chance of winning.
If there’s one thing that Rhodes can’t handle it’s a big puncher, and that’s what Alvarez can do in abundance. Alvarez might not have the best boxing skills or the best defensive ability, but he can really slug. This is going to end badly for Rhodes. He’s a slick fighter that specializes in making guys miss. But with Alvarez, it doesn’t if he misses because he throws a lot of punches and he hits with incredible power no matter what he throws. Alvarez is very heavy handed and that makes him a nightmare for slick fighters like Rhodes.
Slick fighters do well against guys that can only punch hard when they load up on their shots. But with Alvarez, he can punch no matter what he’s throwing. That leaves Rhodes in the position where he’s going to be using a lot of wasted movement trying to avoid the unavoidable. He can’t get out of the way of every one of Alvarez’s shots. It’s just not going to work out if he tries that.
Rhodes’ best bet is to just go right at Alvarez and try to slug with him and hope that maybe he can take him out with a big shot. We saw that Alvarez can be vulnerable early in his fights with he was hurt by Jose Miguel Cotto when he blitzed Avarez in the 1st round and staggered him with a big right hand. Unfortunately for Cotto, he was unable to keep up the pace and eventually got worn out and taken out. This is likely what’s going to happen to Rhodes.
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