By Chris Williams: Amir Khan’s trainer Virgil Hunter says Khan could be the one that scores the knockout in this Saturday’s fight, not WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs), who many boxing fans have as the favorite to win this fight.
Hunter points out that Canelo isn’t the knockout artist that some people says he is. He’s only stopped one junior middleweight and that was the weight drained Alfredo Angulo, who Hunter trained for that fight in 2014. Canelo’s recent knockout over a ring rusty and weight drained James Kirkland was the same situation with Canelo getting a knockout over a guy that had lost a great deal of weight and who hadn’t fought in a long time.
A knockout victory for Khan would be a real shocker to the boxing world, especially to Khan’s promoters at Golden Boy, because they’ve already crowned him as the king of the sport now that Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao have both retired from the game. If Canelo loses to Khan, it’s going to be a crushing blow to Golden Boy, because they obviously hand-picked Khan from the welterweight division because of him supposedly being a safe fight for the 25-year-old Canelo.
“I would be surprised if Amir went for a knockout and ended up getting one,” Hunter said. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if the elements presented themselves and Canelo was caught in the right spot with a punch he didn’t see coming.”
It’s nearly impossible to predict how Canelo will do in this fight because he’s been terrible in the past when facing guys with hand speed. Erislandy Lara was arguably robbed of a decision against Canelo in 2014, and Austin Trout gave Canelo huge problems in their fight in 2013, even though the very odd scoring of that fight didn’t reflect how close it was. Canelo could fight well against the lighter Khan, or we could see the same Canelo that Mayweather clowned for 12 rounds.
It’s anyone’s guess. All we know is Canelo is a very flawed fighter with slow feet, not huge power, and an inability to cut off the ring. Canelo isn’t capable of stopping his opponents quickly like Gennady Golovkin because he doesn’t have that kind of power. Canelo also lacks the ability to put his punches together in a sustained combination form to get knockouts. Most of Canelo’s knockouts came earlier in his career when he was facing no name fighters.
These are the fighters that Canelo has knocked out in the last six years: James Kirkland, Alfredo Angulo, Josesito Lopez, Kermit Cintron, Alfonso Gomez, Ryan Rhodes, Carlos Baldomir, Luciano Leonel Cuello, Jose Miguel Cotto, and Brian Camechis. Most of those fighters were weak welterweights without much talent. Canelo hasn’t knocked out any good fighters since moving up to middleweight.
“The record speaks for itself. Canelo has only knocked out one 154-pounder,” Hunter said. “Canelo was nowhere near stopping Miguel Cotto, Erislandy Lara or Austin Trout. Angulo was dead. Maybe it was their skills, maybe it wasn’t.”
Canelo only landed like 30 punches to the head of Lara the entire fight. The judges gave Canelo the victory over Lara based on very few punches landing in the fight. That was not a good fight for Canelo, and if he fights like that against Khan, he could very well lose the fight unless we see the kind of judging that was present in the Trout, Lara and a certain extent in the Mayweather fight.
One judge had Canenlo getting a draw against Mayweather. When you see stuff like that, it makes you wonder whether Khan has any chance at all of winning a decision against boxing’s new number one fighter. If Canelo can’t be beaten by decision, it’s going to make it tough for him to lose any fights unless he’s knocked out. Given that his promoters at Golden Boy will likely keep him away from Gennady Golovkin, I don’t think Canelo has to worry too much about getting knocked out by anyone.
“This won’t affect his career because he’s not supposed to win,” Hunter said about Khan potentially losing to Canelo. “When the fight starts, he has a plan. If he deviates from those plans, he has to deal with the consequences. However, if he’s successful with what he feels then I’ll be on the same page as him. Whatever is working, let it work.”
A loss won’t hurt Khan’s career, but it definitely won’t help it either unless it’s a close decision loss. Losing by a wide decision or by a knockout, would only harden the opinions some fans have about Khan not having much of a chin.