Saul Canelo Alvarez training for GGG fight with 54 days to go

By Boxing News - 07/23/2018 - Comments

Image: Saul Canelo Alvarez training for GGG fight with 54 days to go

By Sean Jones: A thinner looking Saul Canelo Alvarez is preparing for his rematch with IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin. The two fighters have 54 more days before they face each other on September 15 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

It’s a good sign that Canelo isn’t looking huge like a bodybuilder in training for the fight. In training for Canelo’s previous fight with Golovkin, he put on a lot of muscle in a short period of time. Canelo looked small next to Golovkin at the kickoff press conference to announce the first fight. But after that, Canelo bulked up and looked like a bodybuilder for the fight. All that muscle seemed to slow Canelo down, causing him stamina problems and not helping him to a great extent.

Canelo needs to stay off the ropes and come forward more in the rematch against Triple G so judges and the boxing fans that he’s not just looking to spoil for 12 rounds. Canelo must put in more effort in the rematch, because he looked like he was trying to stall out the previous fight with Golovkin.

It’s important that Canelo fix his cardiovascular problems that limited him in his fight with Golovkin last September in Las Vegas. Canelo found himself exhausted after one minute of fighting hard in each round. The 27-year-old Canelo is said to be working hard on improving his stamina, but it’s highly questionable whether he can fix what isn’t fixable. If Canelo were able to make dramatic improvements in his conditioning, he would have done so at this point. No matter how light Canelo will be for the rematch with Golovkin, he’ll likely gas out at the same point in each round. We’re probably talking about Canelo floundering in the first minute.

Canelo looks faster now that he’s lost some size, but his punching power will likely take a big hit with the loss of muscle mass. In going back to the size that he was before his last fight against Golovkin, Canelo is going to need to use speed to beat him in their rematch. He can’t count on being the heavier fighter like he was in the last fight. Like in all of Canelo’s fights, he chose not to weigh-in on the night of the fight, but it was clear from looking at him that he had the weight advantage over Golovkin. It’s doubtful that Canelo will be able to beat Golovkin on just speed rather than the combination of speed and size like he had in the previous fight.

There are a lot of questions that need answering about Canelo’s ability to hang with the bigger, stronger and more experienced Golovkin in the rematch. Canelo didn’t do so well in the previous fight. Apart from the first two rounds, the fight belonged to GGG from rounds 3 to 12. The judges scored it a 12 round draw, but the fight wasn’t viewed as a draw by the boxing public.

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