By Dan Ambrose: Former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. says he doesn’t view the Mexican star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez as a great fighter. He merely sees the 26-year-old Canelo as a good one. One of the things that Chavez Jr. has noticed about Canelo (48-1-1, 34 KOs) is how he frequently has the advantage over his opponents going into his fights.
Canelo and Chavez Jr. will be mixing it up on May 6 on HBO pay-per-view at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight has played well with the Mexican boxing fans from their home country of Mexico. It’s also a fight that seems to resonate in the U.S as well despite Chavez Jr. not having done a lot in the top tier in a number of years.
Chavez Jr. doesn’t say what kind of an advantage Canelo typically has over his opposition, but many boxing fans believe that Canelo is often the heavier – but not taller – fighter than his opposition. Canelo rehydrates and appears to put on a lot of weight.
We don’t know precisely how much weight Canelo puts back on after his weigh-ins for his fights, as HBO Boxing no longer shows what his weight is on the night of his bouts on their netowrk. Canelo has been fighting guys that have been ring rusty lately or fighters pulled from the welterweight division to fight. He fought welterweight Amir Khan last year instead of his mandatory challenger Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. That was a controversial move by Canelo, because the boxing world wanted to see him fight GGG, not Amir Khan.
“He’s an athlete, looks strong, and from what I’ve seen he has always fought fighters where he had some sort of advantage,” said Chavez Jr. to Fightnews.com. He’s a good fighter. Difficult. We are taking things seriously, but I don’t think he’s one of the great champions of Mexico. He wants me to tell him he’s like Salvador Sanchez, Juan Manuel Marquez, Julio Cesar Chavez. I can’t say that. If he’s angry about that, excuse me!”
Canelo does seem to have an advantage over many of his opponents. He appears to be good at using his A-side status as an advantage in negotiations. Canelo’s promoters at Golden Boy aren’t throwing him in the deep end by putting him in with the really talented fighters from this era. Canelo isn’t facing Golovkin, Jermall Charlo, Daniel Jacobs and Demetrius Andrade. Canelo is fighting guys like Khan, Liam Smith, James Kirkland, Miguel Cotto and Alfredo Angulo. Golden Boy hasn’t taken the training wheels off of Canelo yet. Chavez Jr. did some good things with his career years ago from 2010-2012, but he’s been largely forgotten by a lot of boxing fans due to inactivity and fighting lower level opposition.
Canelo is going to have a couple of advantages over Chavez Jr. on May 6. The 164.5 pound catch-weight that Golden Boy put in the contract for the Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight will favor Canelo, because it’s going to force the much bigger Chavez Jr. to drop weight to make the limit. He’s barely making 168 now. The other advantage that Canelo will have in this fight is he’s coming into it the much more active fighter in the last five years. Chavez Jr. stopped fighting frequently after losing to Sergio Martinez in 2012.