(Photo credit: Tom Casino/Showtime) By Dan Ambrose: Floyd Mayweather Jr. (44-0, 26 KO’s) believes that his opponent WBA/WBC Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-0-1, 30 KO’s) has picked up things from watching him fight and now has incorporated it into his own game, such as the use of the shoulder role defense and fighting with his hands down.
Canelo uses both of these techniques off and on when he fights. However, Mayweather Jr. doesn’t think Canelo uses them well enough to beat him.
Mayweather said this as quoted by RingTV, “He’s [Canelo] a fan of mine. You have to realize this. He likes to use the shoulder-roll. He likes to fight with his hands down and use his defense. I can see a lot of me in Alvarez.”
Canelo does fight a lot like Mayweather when you see Canelo dropping his hands or using the shoulder roll the way that Mayweather does. It sure looks like pure Mayweather to me, albeit without the speed, looseness and athleticism that Mayweather has. Where Canelo deviates from that is when he gets in close and starts throwing body shots. He then turns into more of a Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. type of fighter, especially with his flat-footed style.
Canelo can’t move quickly on his feet like Mayweather even when he’s using the shoulder roll and fighting with his hands down by his sides. Canelo is still pretty much flat-footed and is easy to out-maneuver. He’s built more like a wrestler than a fighter.
Canelo has been winning obviously with that style, but he’s also been fighting a lot of pumped up welterweights that Golden Boy Promotions keeps matching him against for some reason. If Mayweather was fighting at welterweight against lightweights and light welterweights for the past 2-3 years, his fights would probably be much easier.
Mayweather said this about the idea that Canelo out-box him: “I wouldn’t say that. I wouldn’t say that at all.”
Canelo out-boxing Mayweather would be like a young student trying to out-box the teacher before he’s learned how everything the teacher can teach. It’s too early for Canelo to out-box Mayweather, and really I don’t think he can because he’ll never be as good with aspects of Mayweather’s style as Mayweather is. There’s also the missing ingredients in Canelo’s game that will keep him from being able to out-box Mayweather: Speed, defense, footwork, ring IQ, and overall talent.
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