Canelo doesn’t look confident for Trout fight

By Boxing News - 03/16/2013 - Comments

austin1(Photos: Stephanie Trapp/SHOWTIME) By Dan Ambrose: In comparing the face-offs of WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (41-0-1, 30 KO’s) with WBA junior middleweight Austin Trout (26-0, 14 KO’s) to how Canelo usually looks when he’s facing an over-matched opponent, I’ve noticed that he doesn’t look at all cocky and smug this time around compared to his past fights.

If anything, I think Canelo seems worried and possibly afraid for what may happen when he meets Trout in the ring on April 20th at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. It’s like night and day watching Canelo’s face-offs with Josesito Lopez, Shane Mosley, Matthew Hatton and Kertmit Contron, to name just a small handful of his over-matched opposition Golden Boy has fed him in the past two years.

Canelo looked absolutely cocky in those face-offs, like he just knew he was going to win those fights easily. But in his face off with Trout, Canelo didn’t look sure of himself at all, and appeared to be a just a young kid staring a much more mature fighter at 27 in Austin Trout. It’s pretty startling to watch the body language between the two. Trout seems to be the one in control, while Canelo just looks scared and out of his element for the first time in his career.

I guess Canelo should be worried because his immediate future kind of depends on the success of this fight with Trout. An impressive win over Trout could launch Canelo into the pay-per-view realm where he’s getting huge cash for each of his fights like Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao.

That would be impressive given that Canelo is only 22-years-old, and far younger than those two fighters were before they become PPV stars. However, a loss for Canelo, especially a bad one where he’s made to look like a limited flat-footed fighter like Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. was against Sergio Martinez recently, will take Canelo’s career in reverse and slow him down dramatically.

Canelo won’t be able to convince boxing fans to pay to see his fights if he’s totally schooled by Trout, because boxing fans would likely be repulsed at the idea of paying to see a guy that just lost his last fight.

Pacquiao can get away with it, but he’s already a proven PPV star, and he’s got that built in Filipino fan base. But Canelo will have to seriously rebuild after a loss to Trout. There’s also the fact that a win for Trout will see him creating a blueprint for other fighters to follow in order to beat Canelo, and believe me, other fighters will follow that blueprint.

I think we can already see what Trout’s going to do to give Canelo problems on April 20th. He’s going to use movement, jab him, not letting Canelo set his feet to wind up with his power shots.

Canelo can’t fight on the run, and he’s unable to exert himself for any length of time without turning red in the face from exhaustion. That’s one of the reasons why never goes after one of his opponents in a big way to try and take them out. It’s because he doesn’t have the stamina or the foot work to go over them with quick movements to overwhelm them with punches.



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