Saul Alvarez back in action on April 21st, eying a fight against 40-year-old Mosley

By Boxing News - 12/20/2011 - Comments

Image: Saul Alvarez back in action on April 21st, eying a fight against 40-year-old MosleyBy Dan Ambrose: WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez (39-0-1, 29 KO’s) will reportedly be back in action on April 21st next year and is said to be looking to defend his title against either 40-year-old Shane Mosley (46-7-1, 39 KO’s) and/or #15 ranked World Boxing Council contender James Kirkland (30-1, 27 KO’s).

Mosley has already come out publically and said he wants to fight Alvarez in 2012, so putting a fight together with him and Alvarez will be easy. Kirkland has a fight scheduled on January 28th against Carlos Molina and there’s no telling whether Kirkland will get by that fight. But it’s likely that Kirkland will be passed over for this fight due to him being too dangerous for the young 21-year-old Alvarez.

Kirkland already pulled off a big upset by beating one of Golden Boy’s top prospects in Alfredo Angulo last month in a 6th round TKO. It’s highly unlikely that Golden Boy is going to be willing to match their golden goose Alvarez in with a slugger like Kirkland unless they absolutely had to. Kirkland isn’t ranked high, so it will be easy for Golden Boy to ignore this option and go with putting together Mosley vs. Alvarez instead.

Mosley is the equivalent of a toothless lion at this point in his career. He’s still got the famous name but his boxing skills have badly eroded to the point where he’s lost three out of his last six fights, and really should have lost four out of his last six due to the questionable 12 round draw he got against Sergio Mora last year in September. Alvarez has been carefully matched in the past year, facing 39-year-old Lovemore N’dou, 39-year-old Carlos Baldomir, Matthew Hatton, Ryan Rhodes, Alfonso Gomez and Kermit Cintron.

In each case, Alvarez has been matched against weaker opposition and he’s been able to do well, wining the WBC title. Putting Alvarez in with the 40-year-old Mosley will be a continuation of the easy matchmaking that’s been done for Alvarez in the last year. A fight against a dangerous slugger like Kirkland would be a huge departure from how Alvarez has previously been matched, which is why it’s not likely to happen. The past shows a good glimpse of what we’ll likely see in the future when looking at Alvarez’s next opponent.

Mosley lost his last fight against Manny Pacquiao by a 12 round decision in a fight that looked more like a sparring session among good buddies than actual championship bout. Mosley ran and just seemed to be looking to survive the 12 rounds instead of winning it. Pacquiao appeared to let off on Mosley after knocking him down and really didn’t attack him the way he’d done with other opponents.

A fight against Mosley will make Alvarez look a lot better than he is, similar to the way he’s been able to look great against over-matched opposition like Cintron, Hatton, Gomez, Baldomir, Rhodes and N’dou.



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