By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions has done a good job of shielding WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (41-0-1, 30 KO’s) from quality opposition since they started promoting him, and they’ve even did a great job of getting him the WBC 154 pound title by having him fight a welterweight in Matthew Hatton instead of an actual top junior middleweight.
The way that Golden Boy has built Canelo up has been nothing short of brilliance. Unfortunately, Canelo will be taking his first true test of his career when he faces an actual junior middleweight instead of a welterweight in WBA junior middleweight champion Austin Trout on April 20th at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.
With Canelo having faced mostly welterweights while holding down the WBC 154 lb. title it’s hard to see him as anything more than a paper champion.
Canelo will be taking a huge step up in competition in Trout, and I fully expect Trout to out-box Canelo in almost every round of the fight. I see Trout dominating Canelo in 11 of the 12 rounds. The only round I can see Canelo winning is the 1st round and that’s just because Trout will be looking to study Canelo in the opening round to see what he’s got.
From then on, I think Trout is going to totally dominate Canelo and make him look really bad. However, I have a sinking suspicion that Canelo will still win the fight even with Trout having an easy time against him. I just don’t believe the judges will score the fight against Canelo because he’s too popular and is considered the new cash cow for the sport to take over for the aging Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr.
We’ve seen cash cow Pacquiao win two fights against Marquez that many boxing fans felt Pacquiao should have lost. I think it’s extremely difficult for normal fighters to beat cash cow fighters by decisions because they don’t have the same status.
I think Golden Boy is going to find out that it was a big mistake by putting Canelo in with Trout because it’s going to out him in a position where he’ll be getting a decision that he doesn’t deserve if the judges give it to him despite him being dominated by Trout.
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