De La Hoya: Saul Alvarez isn’t ready for Mayweather yet

By Boxing News - 05/06/2012 - Comments

Image: De La Hoya: Saul Alvarez isn't ready for Mayweather yet(Photo credit: Naoki Fakuda) By Allan Fox: WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez (40-0-1, 29 KO’s) put in a superb performance in defeating Shane Mosley last Saturday night on the undercard of the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Miguel Cotto fight in Las Vegas. It was a fight where Alvarez needed to win impressively to make a case for himself to get a big money pay-per-view fight against Mayweather.

While Alvarez fought well, his promoter Oscar De La Hoya reportedly thinks he’s not ready to face Mayweather Jr. just yet, according to examiner.com. HBO analyst Larry Merchant said De La Hoya told him that Alvarez isn’t ready for the Mayweather fight just year. You can’t blame De La Hoya for wanting to take his time with Alvarez, because he showed some flaws in his win over Mosley that a fighter like Mayweather Jr would capitalize in an instant, such as Alvarez being so easy to hit with right hands.

Mosley was able to hit Alvarez whenever he wanted to, and if he wasn’t so old, he might have beaten the younger fighter. Beyond that, Alvarez looked tired by the 6th round, too tired for a fighter his age to be looking in a one-sided fight. Alvarez was red in the face and really huffing and puffing with the little pressure that Mosley was putting on him. Try to imagine what Mayweather would be doing with him. It would be far worse, and he’d pick the youngster apart with his pinpoint shots unless Alvarez was able to take Mayweather out with a big shot.

De La Hoya is going to have to match Alvarez up with one of his contenders Vanes Martirosyan, Erislandy Lara or James Kirkland soon, because he can’t be steered around those contenders forever. Unless De La Hoya is going to have Alvarez vacate his World Boxing Council strap, he’s going to have to fight at least one of those guys in the near future. I don’t know that Alvarez can beat Lara or Martirosyan right now. Even an in shape Kirkland could be more than a handful for Alvarez.



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