(Photo Credit: Hogan Photos/Golden Boy Promotions) By Dan Ambrose: Despite many boxing fans predicting that WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez will use his size advantage to try and flatten challenger Amir Khan on May 7, Khan said he sees the fight winding up as a chess match between him and the 25-year-old Canelo.
Khan says he wants to beat Canelo, prove everyone wrong, and then take his WBC title back home with him to the UK. Khan says his trainer Virgil Hunter will come up with the perfect game plan to defeat Canelo on HBO pay-per-view.
If Khan is able to turn the fight into chess match, it’s going to be awfully tough for Canelo to win, because he’s not as good of a boxer as Khan. Canelo can box, but he’s not at the same level as someone fleet of foot and fast of hand like Khan.
Canelo makes mistakes by trying to box against boxers, and that’s one of the reasons why he struggled in his fights against Floyd Mayweather Jr., and Austin Trout. Canelo had the right idea of slugging in his fights against Miguel Cotto and Erislandy Lara. The problem was he was still so slow and flat-footed that they were able to outbox him over long stretches of those two fights.
“It will be like a game of chess. Canelo is very strong. I have a very good trainer who will tell me the right game plan,” said Khan. “We will go in to win this fight, and I will prove people wrong. Even though it is Cinco de Mayo, the British fans will come out. In Vegas, there will be more British flags then Mexican flag.”
I doubt that Khan’s fans will show up in mass to see him fight Canelo on 5/7. There will be a lot of Khan fans in the audience from the UK, but definitely not as many as Canelo’s fans. It’ll be interesting though to see if the fight sells out. It has a seating capacity of 20,000, and that’s a lot of seats for a fight between Canelo and Khan. If this was a fight between Canelo and Floyd Mayweather Jr., then you count on the fight selling out. It might not for the Canelo-Khan fight.
“Size does not matter in this fight. What does is skill, speed, power, intelligence and experience. If you can be in Las Vegas to watch it live in person, watch it on the best boxing network out there-HBO,” said Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya.
Size won’t matter as long as Khan stays on the move in this fight. If he can move for 12 rounds, then it won’t matter how big Canelo is because he won’t be able to land his big shots. If he were faster on his feet with a longer reach advantage, then he would get to Khan eventually and knock him. However, Canelo isn’t tall, and won’t have the reach advantage in this fight. Khan won’t stand still for Canelo to land his shots, so the size of Canelo won’t help him in this fight at all.
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