By Dan Ambrose: Trainer Joe Goosen thinks WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-0-1, 30 KO’s) will have to dramatically improve his conditioning for him to have a chance to beat undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr. (44-0, 26 KO’s) on September 14th.
Goosen thinks Canelo gassed against Shane Mosley and Austin Trout, and he thinks he’s going to have to work on his conditioning big time to defeat Mayweather. Goosen also thinks Canelo has to change his game plan for this fight and look to fight a lot harder and throw more punches to pressure Mayweather.
Goosen notes that Canelo’s work rate wasn’t high for his fight with Trout, and he backed off from the 5th, fighting with his hands down after getting nailed by a big shot from Trout.
Goosen said to esnewsreporting “If Canelo trains better than he did for the Trout fight or the Mosley fight and puts some more action into his game, because if he fights at that type of pace against Mayweather, it’s not going to be pretty. But if he steps up the pace and double times it, and puts on [Miguel] Cotto type of pressure…it might be interesting.”
It may not be possible for Canelo to up his game to the level that Cotto was fighting Mayweather last year because Canelo has never been able to fight at the pace that the smaller Cotto has in the past. Cotto gassed out after 8 rounds with the pace that he put on against Mayweather. I don’t think it’s possible for the bigger Canelo to fight at a pace even remotely as busy as the one Cotto put on last year.
If Canelo could do that he might make it difficult for Mayweather, because Canelo will likely out-weigh Mayweather by 20 pounds when they face each other. We’re talking about a guy that is bigger than WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, who recently started his training camp for his fight with Matthew Macklin weighing 168, and Golovkin’s a middleweight.
Canelo, a junior middleweight, weighed 172 for his last fight. But I don’t think it’s possible for Canelo to fight at a fast pace without gassing after 4 rounds. He’s just one of those guys that needs to fight at a slow pace because if he fights hard for more than 5 rounds, he’ll end up red-faced, gasping for breath and taking shots.
Also if Canelo goes after Mayweather by throwing a lot of punches, it’s going to give Mayweather tons of opportunities to land his counter punches. Canelo will get eaten alive by Mayweather, especially when he starts gassing out by the 4th or 5th rounds if he’s fighting hard.
The funny thing about Canelo is he gassed out after the 4th round against Austin Trout even though he was throwing almost no punches. He still gassed out and judges giving him rounds. I had Trout winning that fight 9 rounds to 3. It was an easy fight for him over a tired, young guy.
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