By Yannis Mihanos: When Amir “King” Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) signed for the fight against WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 21 KOs) for May 7 on HBO PPV, many heads turned, as it was a surprise move that very few expected. We are now only a few days away from this very important fight at the new 20,000 seat T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Both fighters have completed their preparation and are in peak condition.
I am noticing from Amir’s recent interviews, confidence and even at times over optimism. That’s OK, fighters need to be pumped up before the fight. This after all is boxing. Khan, 29, seems to have embraced his new body weight and look forward to prove a point to the boxing world.
The decision to fight Saul “Canelo” Alvarez is one that restores greatly Khan’s injured public image.
Years of hype and delay now have come to an end. Finally he gets to meet a top name and he is at the right age too.
So he took many steps towards the right direction and I applause him for this.
Without taking adequate risks no one can be considered a great athlete or a top star, not even near.
Problem for Khan is that this is not at all an easy fight, unlike what he says or thinks he believes. His claims that he will become the next number 1 boxing star are still premature.
Fighting at a 155 pound catch-weight for the Canelo bout, Khan says that he feels at home. However, I am asking this: Will Khan feel the same when he finally meets Canelo in the ring on Saturday? Difficult to agree.
Canelo is expected to come at his usual size that is over 170 pounds.
Canelo is an old school fighter. His style is based heavily on strength and guts. They all say that his size makes all the difference in his fights, and even if let’s say it does, he still gets the job done with his power punches.
His strength and guts complete the job.
I don’t see this fight going down on who has higher or better boxing IQ.
In my opinion this fight is all about consistency,whoever is more consistent will win.
Forget for a moment all this talk about weight and extra skills and simply ask yourself this: Who can be more consistent on Saturday night? Khan or Canelo?
Khan is very fast and talented but often lacks concentration and focus. Even against Chris Algieri, Khan received so many killer punches during their fight last year. Luckily for Khan, Algieri is not a big puncher and couldn’t hurt him enough.
Canelo is very different. He is 10 times stronger than Algieri, and unlike what we saw with him against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2013, in all other opponents, he found the openings and hurt them badly. I don’t see a change of plan here.
So the question will go down on how much each one can take without breaking their consistency. That to me is the million dollar question.
Boxing often becomes a game of chess while other times is as simple as it gets. Hopefully we will know the answer very soon.