(Photo credit: Naoki Fakuda) By Dan Ambrose: If Floyd Mayweather Jr. is looking for a good opponent for his September 14th fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, he needs to think hard about selecting WBC interim light welterweight champion Lucas Matthysse for that fight instead of WBA/WBC light middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
The reason to choose Matthysse is because he fights a lot closer to Mayweather’s natural weight of 146-150 lbs. than the 172 lb. Canelo. Mayweather won’t have to worry about Matthysse rehydrating up in weight 20-25 lbs, and he won’t have to fight a light heavyweight.
Mayweather is a brave fighter and he likes his opponents to be comfortable, but there are limits with what he’s willing to put up with. You can’t expect Mayweather to fight a guy three divisions heavier than him in Canelo.
That guy needs to move up to the 175 lb. division and face people his own weight instead of boiling down to 154 and then calling out 147 pounders to fight him at 154, but then rehydrating quickly back up to light heavyweight.
Matthysse can probably punch harder than Canelo and he’s a lot faster, and he can fight for the full 3 minutes of every round instead of just one round like Canelo.
Matthysse doesn’t need open scoring to win his fights, because he’s not someone that has stamina probable, turns red-faced and needs to fight only a small portion of the rounds. Matthysse can fight hard for the full three minutes of each round.
Mayweather needs to look Matthysse’s way right now because he’s already more popular than the other guys that Mayweather is considering. He’s not as popular as Canelo, but I don’t think Mayweather is seriously considering Canelo because he knows he’d be out-weighed by 20+ pounds if he were to say yes to that fight.
Mayweather is a great fighter, but he’s no light heavyweight and he shouldn’t be expected to face one. Why doesn’t Canelo turn around and fight someone 25 pounds heavier tham himself like WBA cruiserweight champion Guillermo Jones.
Can you picture Canelo in the ring with Jones? It would be a slaughter. Jones would use his 20-25 pound weight advantage over Canelo to pound him.
Comments are closed.