By Dan Ambrose: Floyd Mayweather Jr. (44-0, 26 KO’s) only has to look at how exhausted Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-0-1, 30 KO’s) in his last two fights that went the distance to know of the perfect plan in how to beat the 22-year-old. For some reason, Canelo starts gassing badly by the 5th rounds of his fights and he doesn’t seem capable of fighting with a little of energy.
Canelo tends to coast and fight hard approximately 1 minute of every round with lots of gaps in between his exchanges. I have a feeling that Canelo has energy/stamina problems because he’s fighting at a weight that his body isn’t suited for.
If a fighter is weighting 170+ or close to that and then draining down to 154 by losing lots of water weight, you see the negative effects of that with that fight looking tired early. You don’t lose that kind of water weight without it having some adverse effect on your performance.
Canelo has been able to get away with this simply by still being the much heavier fighter against the welterweights he’s been facing. He takes a big stamina hit by coming down from 170+ to get to 154, and then putting the weight back on in 24 hours. He’s still winning because he’s got all that weight and power.
It’s like taking a super middleweight or a light heavyweight and matching him against a welterweight. 99 times out of 100, that bigger super middleweight and light heavyweight is going to beat the welterweight before he gasses out from having shifted all that water weight in 24 hours.
What Mayweather has to do is make Canelo fight extremely hard for all three minutes of every round. He can’t let Canelo perch himself against the ropes just looking to move his head. Mayweather has to keep throwing power shots and picking him apart.
Throwing jabs won’t be enough because the judges will likely favor Canelo’s harder shots even if Mayweather is out-landing Canelo with jabs 60 to 5. If those 5 power punches are harder than the jabs, I can see the judges giving the rounds to Canelo regardless of whether Mayweather’s jabs are snapping Canelo’s head back or not.
Canelo’s fighting in a division that’s really not made for his body any longer. It’s like taking Andre Ward and sticking him in the welterweight division and expecting him to be as strong and as effective as he is at super middleweight. Canelo needs to move up to middleweight or super middleweight to be at full strength, but he obviously won’t. As such, we’re going to see a tired looking Canelo in this fight and all Mayweather has to do is make Canelo fight three minutes of every round and he’ll have an easy win on September 14h.
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