By Scott Gilfoid: WBA heavyweight champion David Haye believes fellow Brit Ryan Rhodes (45-4, 31 KO’s) will pull off an upset tonight against unbeaten Mexican WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez (36-0-1, 26 KO’s) at the Arena VFG, Tlajomulco de Zúñiga, Jalisco, Mexico.
Haye, who has problems of his own against IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko on July 2nd, sees the 34-year-old Rhodes as having the experience, mindset and the skills to beat the young 20-year-old Alvarez. It’s too bad Rhodes lacks all those things. Alvarez is going to win this fight and win easily.
Here is what Haye had to say on his hayemaker.com blog: “Having watched Ryan for years, I’ve got no doubt he has the skills and mentality to go into Alvarez’s backyard and do a number on the younger man.”
I’ve been watching Rhodes for a number of years as well and what I see is a decent domestic level fighter that has feasted on the lack of quality on the local level. When Rhodes has stepped up to the world class level, he’s been smacked back down and rudely put in his place. I expect Alvarez to put Rhodes in his proper place tonight by sending him packing early back to good old England. In a way, Alvarez is doing Rhodes a big favor, because by showing him that he can’t hang with the best it will save Rhodes wasted energy in going after top world fighters. Rhodes can put better use of his time by focusing on the local lads and picking up scalps with the little time he has left in his career.
Haye thinks that Alvarez is the perfect style match-up for Rhodes, because “He won’t have to go looking for Alvarez.” Boy, Haye is really starting to sound deluded here because it won’t be Rhodes going after Alvarez, it will be Alvarez having to chase down a constantly running Rhodes. I suspect Rhodes will mix it up initially in the 1st round, but after he gets a taste of Alvarez’s power, Rhodes will be gone like a scalded dog, running around the ring in big circles for as long as he can until Alvarez catches up to him and mercifully puts Rhodes out of his misery.
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