By Dan Ambrose: Former WBA lightweight champion Ray Mancini thinks that Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KOs) is an ordinary fighter with marginal skills, and that he should have been given a defeat in his fight against Erislandy Lara this month.
Mancini, like many other boxing experts, feels that Lara out-boxed Canelo for 12 rounds, but ultimately lost the fight to the house fighter, the guy that brings in more money for the sport of boxing.
Mancini thinks that Canelo’s trainers haven’t taught him the things that he needs to know, and that they were exposed for what they didn’t tell him in Canelo’s loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. Mancino thinks Canelo is a big puncher, but not a skilled one and not one that can handle any kind of movement.
Mancini says that boxing greats like Ruben Olivares, Ricardo Lopez and Julio Cesar Chavez Sr have to be confused when looking at the interest there is in Canelo, because he’s an ordinary fighter without a lot of skills.
“Canelo’s an ordinary fighter, there’s nothing special about him,” Mancini said to Boxing Channel. “Lara won the fight as far as I’m concerned. Lara gave him a boxing lesson. There’s a thing called ring generalship. But he [Lara] don’t sell two tickets. Canelo’s the house fighter, he got that. It’s better for business. It’s called show business. But Lara won the show. His [Canelo] trainers, nice guys, don’t know anything. In the Mayweather fight, they told him nothing. They were exposed, he was exposed. In the Lara fight, they didn’t tell him anything different. Every time Lara threw a punch down the middle, he caught him. He [Canelo] ain’t learning nothing. He’s a power guy. Put a guy in front of him, he’ll knock down a building. The guys that move give him problems.”
Mancini basically thinks Canelo was given a decision over Lara that he didn’t deserve and that he was exposed once again and shown to be a limited fighter.
When you look at the way Mancini, Chavez Sr, Olivares and Ricardo Lopez fought during their prime and compare it to Canelo, it’s like night and day. Those guys were good at cutting off the ring, dealing with fighters that moved, and they looked vastly more skilled than Canelo.
Mancini believes that Canelo’s problems begin with him not having the trainers that he needs for him to fight at a higher level.
With Canelo’s loyalty to his long-time trainers, it’s not probable that he’ll ever look to get someone that can teach him how to fight properly. Even having an adviser like Mancini would probably dramatically help Canelo, but that’s probably not going to happen. He seems to be tied to Chepo Reynoso until the end. That’s too bad because it means that unless Golden Boy Promotions matches Canelo carefully, he’s going to either take additional losses or possibly win more fights by controversial decisions like his wins over Lara and Austin Trout.
You’re not likely to see any improvement in Canelo’s game without a change of trainers. As he ages, he’s probably going to get worse rather than better, because at 24, he’s barely making junior middleweight and he’s not fast or good at cutting off the ring.
It’s surprising how many people feel that Lara should have been given the win. The short list is Mancini, Teddy Atlas and Paulie Malignaggi, but there obviously many more notable guys that saw Canelo lose. Golden Boy Promotions needs to realize that Canelo won a controversial decision and that they need to put him back in the ring rather than having him move on from this tainted win.
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