By Dan Ambrose: WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez’s last couple of fights have shown us that he lacks stamina and his footwork is nothing short of terrible for a fighter only 22. Alvarez tends to plod, turns red-faced and looks exhausted after the midway point in his fights.
He needs to work his foot speed conditioning in a major way, because those are the flaws that are eventually going to lead to Alvarez getting beaten someday. Who knows? It may come against his next opponent 27-year-old Josesito Lopez (30-4, 18 KO’s) on September 15th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Lopez moves a lot better than Alvarez and his stamina is worlds better. To be sure, Lopez may not be as heavy nor as strong as the heavy-handed Alvarez, but he’s definitely much quicker on his feet and better in the stamina department.
Alvarez fights at a very slow pace and he does on that on purpose because he doesn’t have great stamina. His opposition has been either too poor or not quick mentally to figure out that the way to beat Alvarez is to fight at an incredibly high pace to wear him down. Even 40-year-old Shane Mosley had Alvarez gassing out last May in a one-sided fight.
All Mosley did was throw punches back at a consistent pace, by no means a blistering pace, but steady enough to have Alvarez exhausted and frustrated. Can you imagine what Lopez can do to Alvarez if he fights like he did against Victor Ortz? Alvarez might keel over from just plane tiredness if Lopez really pushes the guy in this fight. I think it’s definitely possible.
Alvarez has some advantage in power and boxing ability that makes him a very good bet to win this fight, but he fights like a 300 pound overweight heavyweight the way he walks around the ring and gets completely exhausted when he fights. It’s up to Lopez to push the fight at a high enough pace to wear Alvarez down on September 15th.
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