By Allan Fox: Golden Boy Promotions has done a good job of pulling an opponent for their fighter WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez (40-0-1, 29 KO’s) up from the depths of the welterweight division in Josesito Lopez (30-4, 18 KO’s) to face the 22-year-old Alvarez this Saturday night on Showtime at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The WBC has even given the 28-year-old Lopez a ranking of #4 in the 154 pound division so Alvarez won’t take as much heat for fighting a guy from a division below him.
You can make a strong argument that Alvarez will really be facing is a fighter that is two divisions below him because Lopez fought for the first time at welterweight in his last fight against Victor Ortiz last June and would have lost that fight had Ortiz not suffered a broken jaw. That’s not something that happens every fight, so you can’t give Lopez credit for the injury.
It happened as a freak accident and the chances are that Lopez will never have another opponent suffer a jaw injury of that kind for the remainder of his career. But I don’t think Alvarez is going to be suffering any jaw injuries this Saturday, and short of him suffering a debilitating injury that prevents him from continuing on int he fight, I see Lopez getting beaten up by Alvarez.
Alvarez has the power advantage in this fight as well as the youth. The experience also goes to Alvarez, as he’s been in with the better guys overall. Lopez has fought Ortiz and Jessie Vargas, and that’s the extent of his fights against quality opposition. Vargas is kind of a fringe guy, and I don’t consider him a top five fighter at welterweight. I see him as a bottom 15 contender that is barely making the 15 spot.
Lopez is going to try and take the fight Alvarez this Saturday and that’s going to result in Lopez getting knocked out a lot faster than he would if he tried to box Alvarez. Either way. I think Lopez is going to get taken out in this fight, but if he goes after Alvarez like I think he will it’s going to end really fast.
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