De La Hoya: I’ll be surprised if Canelo doesn’t KO Mayweather within 8 rounds

By Boxing News - 08/27/2013 - Comments

canelo66By Dan Ambrose: WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-0-1, 30 KO’s) is going into his fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. (44-0, 26 KO’s) next month needing a definite knockout to win the fight, because there’s no way that the huge for weight class Canelo can beat Mayweather Jr. by a decision.

With that in mind, Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions doesn’t think Mayweather will be able to make it past the 8th round against the red-haired Canelo. De La Hoya thinks Canelo is too talented and too powerful for Mayweather.

De La Hoya said “If he [Canelo] doesn’t knock Floyd out in less than 8 rounds, I will be very surprised. My world changed after I beat [Julio Cesar] Chavez. Canelo is experiencing the glory and ahead of his time. I will tell him [Canelo] to stay focused, and keep pumping your jab. That is the key. Canelo is so calm and mature. Nothing gets to him. He is focused. Mayweather got the decision [against me], but I feel I beat him. You have the guy with the torch [Mayweather], and the guy who is going to get the torch, and everybody knows it.”

De La Hoya beat a past his prime Chavez Sr. De La Hoya still thinks that the way to beat Mayweather Jr. is to jab him, because De La Hoya had some success using his jab in their fight in 2007. But if you look at that fight, Mayweather seemed to be taking it easy on De La Hoya during the first 6 rounds instead of really opening up on him. It wasn’t until the 6th round was over that Mayweather Jr. seemed to get serious and start toying with De La Hoya.

If Canelo obediently follows De La Hoya’s advice to just jab Mayweather Jr. all night, he’s going to get wiped out and humiliated by him, because Canelo is too slow and robotic when he throws his jab. Jabbing will get Canelo clowned in this fight. His only real chance of to stalk Mayweather Jr. and try to shove him against the ropes to get some shots in. The referee will probably let Canelo get away with roughing Mayweather Jr. up every now and then, as long he doesn’t go overboard with the fouling.

Canelo has to shove Mayweather Jr. up against the ropes every chance he can get, because if it’s a fight that is within the normal rules of boxing, Canelo has no chance to win. He’s too slow, way too big to be fighting a welterweight, and his stamina is horrible.

The stamina problems are obviously a byproduct of Canelo draining down from light heavyweight [170+ lbs] to fight at junior middleweight. If he would simply fight in the light heavyweight or super middleweight division against guys his own size, he’d probably have a lot better stamina, and would be able to fight 3 minutes of every round.



Comments are closed.