By Dan Ambrose: WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez says he wanted to fight his next bout at 154lbs for one of the world titles at that weight. However, his May 7 opponent Amir Khan was the one who wanted to fight for his WBC 160lb title, which is why the fight is being contested at a 155lb catch-weight in order to make it an official middleweight fight.
The catch-weight fits into the 155 to 160lb parameters of the middleweight division.
Canelo, 25, doesn’t say which junior middleweight title he would have liked to have fought for, but it’s quite likely he would have dropped down to fight Khan for the vacant WBC junior middleweight title. That’s the belt that was recently stripped from Mayweather after he retired from the sport last September.
The winner of the Canelo-Khan fight for the WBC 154lb title would have had to fight #1 WBC Jermell Charlo. That would be a tough fight for either of them. Khan hasn’t made up his mind yet what division he’ll be fighting in after the Canelo fight on May 7. He could stay at 160, or drop down to 154 or 147 depending on how well he can drop weight without feeling weight drained.
“Amir wanted an opportunity to fight for the middleweight title, so that’s the reason this is at 155lbs. To be able to fight for it, it has to be in margin of middleweight. I would have liked to fight for a title at super welterweight. I was thinking of fighting for a title at 154lbs, but then this fight was made.”
Khan, 29, wants the opportunity to make a big splash by winning the WBC middleweight title against Canelo. If Khan can win the WBC middleweight title, it would be a huge accomplishment and would lead to big money for him. Moving up two divisions to win a world title isn’t something that’s done every day.
Canelo should have pushed Khan to fight him at 154, because it wouldn’t look nearly as bad for Canelo to lose to Khan in that weight class.
Khan is still a huge underdog in this fight. He says his trainer Virgil Hunter is coming up with the perfect game plan to defeat the heavier Canelo. It’s probably not too hard for Hunter to come up with a good game plan though, because Floyd Mayweather Jr. already created the blueprint in how to beat Canelo three years ago in 2013. Erislandy Lara followed that blueprint and it worked perfectly for him in their fight in 2014. However, the judges didn’t give the less popular Lara the fight. If Khan can follow the Mayweather blue print to perfection, then he’ll have a good chance of beating Canelo. One problem that Khan has is he’s not elusive, and he can’t fight backing up like Mayweather. After all this time, Khan still hasn’t studied Mayweather’s fights enough to know how to move laterally when under attack. In Khan’s last fight against Chris Algieri, Khan was constantly backing straight up rather than using lateral movement when under attack. If Khan does this against Canelo, he won’t last long.
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