(Photo credit: Ester Lin/Showtime) By Eric Thomas: #4 WBC Josesito Lopez (30-4, 18 KO’s) plans on trying to tire WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (40-0-1, 29 KO’s) out in their fight this Saturday night by setting an incredibly fast pace at MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The fight, which will be televised by Showtime, pits the slender but tall 28-year-old Lopez against the younger but much more solidly built and stronger 22-year-old Alvarez.
Lopez said to SportsIllustrated.cnn.com “With Canelo we have to be smart, with a fast pace. He has not had to work at a fast pace. We’re going to see if he can. We’re a little more active in the ring than he is. We’re going to push him. We are not going to let him get 30 seconds of waiting around.”
That sounds like a wise plan. It probably doesn’t matter much that Lopez is revealing it now ahead of the fight, because Alvarez will likely run out of gas even if he knows what Lopez is going to do. We saw Alvarez looked really tired in getting pushed by the 40-year-old Shane Mosley in his last fight last May.
That was not an impressive performance from Alvarez, as he really looked tired and annoyed with Mosley’s fast pace and constant pitty-pat shots. Mosley didn’t have the power to really give Alvarez problems, but he did give him problems with his constant activity.
Lopez is probably a bigger puncher than Mosley at this stage in his career, and he’s definitely more active and more mobile fighter than the 40-year-old Mosley. Lopez has a good chance of winning this fight against Alvarez if he can really exhaust Alvarez by fighting hard for the full three minutes of each round.
Lopez has got to turn it into a war from the get go to make Alvarez fight harder than he wants to. Alvarez turns red in the face and gets exhausted looking when his opponents get him out of his comfort zone. Lopez has a chance of pulling off an upset if he can wear Alvarez down.
Comments are closed.