By Jeff Aranow: Gennady Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez expects Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) to have his moments early in his fight against the heavier Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs), but ultimately, Sanchez sees Canelo using his size, power and will to get the better of Khan to win the fight.
Sanchez sees it as an interesting fight and he likes the match-up, especially for Canelo. Khan is a bigger name for Canelo than the other guys that his promoters at Golden Boy Promotions were looking at getting for the fight. Golden Boy were thinking of matching Canelo against Gabriel Rosado and Willie Monroe Jr.
Those guys wouldn’t have worked out if they had been selected. Sanchez thinks that Canelo lacked a big enough name on his own to carry the pay-per-view card on HBO.
“I think Canelo needed a dance partner worthy of a pay-per-view fight,” Sanchez said to esnewsreporting. “The guys they were mentioning, [Gabriel] Rosado and some of the other guys, weren’t good enough and Canelo couldn’t carry it by himself, so it was a great choice. It’s an interesting fight. Canelo should be too strong for him, but Khan is a decent fighter. Hand speed and foot speed may prove to be the difference at the beginning of the fight. Later in the fight, Canelo will be too strong,” said Sanchez.
Canelo should be too big for Khan even from the start. It might not take a lot of rounds for Canelo to get the better of Khan if he goes after him immediately.
Canelo won his last fight against Miguel Cotto last November in dominating the fight with a wide 12 round decision. Since it’s unlikely that Khan would ever be able to compete against a guy as powerful as Cotto, it means that Khan is going to be in deep trouble on May 7 when he gets inside the ring with Canelo at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Canelo is coming down to 155lbs for this fight, which would make some fans think that he’s giving Khan a break by dropping down five pounds. Canelo will be far beyond 155 pounds when he gets inside the ring with Khan. It wouldn’t be all surprising if Canelo rehydrates 25 pounds to 180. 30 pounds is probably too much, but 25 pounds is definitely realistic for Canelo to put back on because he’s starting to fill out more since his fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2013. I don’t think Canelo can hit below 170, and it’s probably going to be difficult for him to even drop to 175.
Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya was wise to make this match for Canelo, because it’s got the potential to make him look really good in the eyes of the casual boxing fans. Khan will do most of the work in hyping the fight with his constant interviews. Khan doesn’t mind speaking to the media, and he’s quite good at it. Khan will very likely do all the heavy lifting in promoting the fight, and Canelo will take advantage of that with him getting a huge payday estimated at $10 million, possibly more.
If Khan can fight on the move for 12 rounds, it’s going to put Canelo in a tough situation where he’ll need to try and connect with one big punch to get a knockout. The problem that Canelo has is he’s not a one-punch knockout type of fighter and he never has been. Canelo gets his knockouts much in the same way that former heavyweight champion George Foreman used to get his knockouts by bludgeoning his opponents into submission. Canelo does against fighters that are looking to go to war with him. Canelo doesn’t do well against fighters that box and move. Canelo has fought precisely three mobile fighters during his career in Floyd Mayweather Jr., Erislandy Lara and Austin Trout. Some people think Canelo deserved to lose all three of those fights instead of just one. He may have gotten the wins over Lara and Trout, but he did not look good. Khan has a chance of winning the fight if he can fight on the move like Trout and Lara did. He’s faster than those two guys and he can be hard to hit when he wants to be.
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