Merchant thinks Canelo can beat Mayweather

By Boxing News - 07/02/2013 - Comments

Canelo with media(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Dan Ambrose: Former HBO analyst Larry Merchant believes that the 22-year-old Saul “Canelo” Alvarez has a pretty good chance to beat Floyd Mayweather Jr. in their fight on September 14th. Merchant isn’t predicting that Canelo will win, but he’s giving him a good chance of getting the win.

Merchant likes Canelo’s size advantage, his youth and his ability to control the ring.

Speaking with Maxboxing The Next Round, Merchant said “Yes, I think he [Canelo] can win the fight. I’m not picking him to win. I think he’s a strong young guy and I think he has a shot. He is in command in the ring, on offense and defense.”

I agree with Merchant about Canelo being in command in his previous fights, but Canelo hasn’t exactly been facing the most dangerous guys either. It’s easy for him to be in command when he’s facing guys like a past his best Kermit Cintron, 40-year-old Carlos Baldomir, 40-year-old Lovemore N’dou, welterweights Alfonso Gomez, Matthew Hatton and Josesito Lopez. It’s easy to be in command against those guys because they’re not upper level.

As far as Canelo’s fight with Austin Trout, Canelo wasn’t in command of anything in the first four rounds. He was getting out-jabbed and BADLY outworked by Trout. It wasn’t until the judges’ scores were revealed after the 4th round that showed Canelo winning almost every round that he started to take command of the fight.

Canelo was able to take control of the fight because Trout had to abandon his boxing and jabbing and instead become a slugger. I had Trout winning the first four rounds easy, but the judges that were working the fight had Canelo up big. Once Trout started slugging with Canelo, it made things easier for him.

I still thought Trout dominated most of the rest of the fight apart from the 7th round, but again the three judges had it scored differently. Canelo basically went into the pot shot mode after the judges scores were revealed in the 8th, with him having a huge lead. The remainder of the fight, Canelo did next to nothing, and yet still ended up winning most of the remaining rounds. I thought it was awful scoring of the fight.



Comments are closed.