By Dan Ambrose: WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) and Amir “King” Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) recently weighed in for their 30-day weights, and surprisingly there was only a two-pound difference between the two fighters for their fight next month on HBO pay-per-view on May 7.
Canelo weighed in at 163.8 pounds compared to Khan’s 161.2.bs. If this weight stays the way it is, then Canelo will only need to lose 8.8 pounds to make the 155lb limit for their catch-weight fight at the T-Mobile Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Khan has said that he’ll be coming into the fight over 160lbs. To have a chance at winning the fight, Khan might need to be around 165, and he’ll need to have good enough stamina to move for 12 continuous rounds. Khan, 29, doesn’t have the defensive skills of someone like Floyd Mayweather Jr., who was able to stand in the pocket and avoid most of Canelo’s shots in the fight.
When Khan stands in the pocket, he’s easy to hit. The only time that Khan makes it difficult on his opponents is when he’s moving around the ring. Khan is difficult to hit when he’s on the move. However, Khan still undermines himself by choosing to throw combinations rather than single shots like Mayweather.
Hopefully for Khan’s sake, his trainer Virgil Hunter has watched Mayweather’s fight against Canelo from 2013, and will have Khan throwing single punches so that he doesn’t get countered by Canelo and knocked out.
It’s very likely that Canelo dehydrated to get down to the 163.8lb weight that he weighed in at for the 30-day weigh-in, because in the past, he weighed in low at 30-day weigh-ins and then came into the fight over 170. It’s very likely that Canelo’s weight is at least 10, possibly 15 pounds heavier than his 30-day weight. We might be talking about Canelo coming into the fight at 180 on May 7. That would put Khan under a lot of pressure to keep moving for the entire fight in order to stay on his feet.
If Khan stops and tries to trade with Canelo, it could be disastrous. The only way Khan can win this fight is to use the Mayweather blueprint in hitting Canelo with jabs and single right hands to the head, and then moving away. Khan cannot afford to try and land combinations or his left hook because it will open him up for a counter shot from Canelo. The 25-year-old Canelo doesn’t get a lot of credit for his ability to counter his opponents, but he’s very good at doing that to make his opponents pay for any shot they land if they get close enough.
Khan is pretty confident that he can come in and score an upset against Canelo in this fight. It’s going to take more than Khan’s usual high degree of self-confidence for him to pull off an upset in this fight because this is the first fight of Khan’s career where he’s coming into the match as a clear underdog. He says that it motivated him to be the underdog because it makes him train harder.
If Canelo comes into this fight in the 180s, he’s going to crush Khan, even if he weighs in at 165. Khan’s only chance of winning is to be within 10 pounds of Canelo. If we get a situation where Canelo is dwarfing Khan like he did in his last fight against the much smaller Miguel Cotto, then this is going to be a very easy fight for Canelo because Khan cannot beat someone that is several weight classes heavier. It’s in Canelo’s best interest to be as heavy as possible for this fight so that he can beat Khan on size alone.
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