By Dan Ambrose: One of the questions that fans have about WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) is how will he deal with the superior hand speed and foot speed of the smaller, quicker Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) in their fight on May 7 on HBO pay-per-view.
Canelo struggled badly against faster fighters in the past in fights against Erislandy Lara, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Austin Trout. Canelo appeared to lose all three of those fights. However, Canelo’s promoters at Golden Boy Promotions have backed him off from facing fighters with fast hands in the past year, and he’s done well against slow fighters like Miguel Cotto and James Kirkland.
“I’ve got the experience now to know how to deal with it,” Canelo said to Fighthype in talking about Khan’s hand speed. “He is fast and it is complicated, but I feel I have the experience now. I’ve fought fighters that are just as fast, I feel and I’ll be able to deal with it,” said Canelo.
I don’t think Canelo is correct in him having the experience to deal with Khan’s hand speed. Canelo failed against Lara to deal with his hand speed, and was out-punched and out-landed by the Cuban fighter. If not for a controversial decision, Canelo would have lost the fight. You can’t count Canelo’s wins over Cotto and Kirkland as experience against faster fighters, because both of those guys have slow hand speed.
They’re not quick at all. The only experience that Canelo has against fighters with fast hands is negative experience against Lara, Trout and Mayweather. Trout isn’t that fast of hand, but he’s clearly faster than Canelo. Trout outworked Canelo and had him pinned to the ropes virtually the entire second half of their fight in 2013 after hurting him with a body shot that caused Canelo to retreat to the ropes and stay there.
The only thing about Khan that you have to question is his poor defense. He was backed up all night long by the light hitting Chris Algieri last year in May, and he was hit with a lot looping shots from him. The 5’10” Algieiri had a close two-inch height advantage and a one-inch reach advantage over Khan, but it seemed like a lot more than that.
Algieri was able to back Khan up all night long and nail him with looping right hands and left hooks. Khan was hit with almost everything Algieri threw in that fight. The only reason Khan won the fight was because he was taking advantage of Algieri’s aggressiveness to nail him with shots while he was pressuring him. Khan will need to be a lot better defensively against Canelo if he wants to win the fight, because he’s not going to get the decision if Canelo is able to nail him with 10 good head shots per round.
Even if Canelo lands five hard head shots per round, I think the judges are going to give the rounds to Canelo no matter how many punches Khan hits him with/ The judges are going to be impressed with Canelo’s superior punching power in this fight. That’s why Khan has to fight like Mayweather by shutting Canelo out completely.
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