By Jeff Aranow: WBO featherweight champion Oscar Valdez says he thinks Saul Canelo Alvarez has more than enough tools in his game to defeat Gennady Golovkin in their upcoming fight in 2 weeks on HBO pay-per-view in Las Vegas, Nevada. Valdez, 27, thinks Canelo (49-1-2, 34 KOs) is an outstanding boxer with enough talent to beat GGG.
Despite Canelo having great talent, he was unable to beat Golovkin in their fight last September. The fight was scored a draw and media at press row overwhelmingly had Canelo losing to Golovkin. The judges thought Canelo deserved a draw and that’s all that counts. However, you can argue that Canelo’s popularity took a big hit with him appearing to be given a gift draw, and then later testing positive 2 times for clenbuterol last February while training for a rematch with GGG.
“Canelo has all the tools to beat GGG,” Oscar Valdez said to Fightnews.com. “I’m not saying this because I will now train with Eddy Reynoso. I’m saying it as I said it before the first fight. I am team Canelo and I know that Canelo is a great boxer, a great fighter.”
Valdez joins Mikey Garcia and Robert Garcia in believing that Canelo will beat Golovkin in the rematch. Canelo has said that he plans on taking the fight to Golovkin to try and knock him out. If that’s the case, then this fight won’t be a boxing match like the first fight. Canelo will need to be able to out-brawl Golovkin if he wants to beat him on September 15. Canelo didn’t do well when he was slugging with Golovkin last time. He was much better when he was countering him and moving away to keep GGG off of him.
Canelo has the hand speed, counter punching, defense skills, youth, hometown and promotional advantage against Golovkin. Canelo’s youth isn’t as much of a factor as one would think due to Golovkin’s superior stamina. Youth is a factor normally in fights because the younger fighter tends to have better conditioning and reflexes than older fighters. In this case, Golovkin has the much better stamina than Canelo. What we saw in the previous Canelo-GGG fight was the hometown and promotional advantage for Canelo appeared to help him get a draw that he didn’t deserve. Golovkin has made up his mind that he’s not going to let Canelo see the final bell in the rematch because he has little faith in the judges for them to do their job correctly with the scoring. Golovkin has been jaded by his experience from his previous fight with Canelo, and he doesn’t want to let that happen again.
There you have it. Valdez is giving his endorsement to Canelo for his rematch with IBO/WBA/WBC 160 pound champion Golovkin (38-0-1, 34 KOs). Canelo needs to try a different approach for him to win this fight and not look like he’s being given preferential treatment by the Nevada State Athletic Commission assigned judges. Canelo spent most of his fight with Golovkin with his back pinned against the ropes, fighting conservatively in a manner that would suggest that he’s milking a huge lead rather than a challenger trying to unseat a multi-belt middleweight champion. It didn’t seem to register with the assigned judges that Golovkin was the champion and Canelo the challenger, as they scored the fight in a manner that suggested that the Mexican star was the champ. There were a lot of rounds that appeared to be won by Golovkin but in fact ended up going Canelo’s way. One prime example of that were rounds 7, 10, 11 and 12. The judges gave Canelo those rounds, and the boxing fans didn’t agree with the scoring.
Valdez is recovering from a broken jaw he suffered in his last defense of his World Boxing Organization featherweight title against Scott Quigg (34-2-2, 25 KOs) on March 10. Valdez stood and slugged with Quigg in the first six rounds, and ended up getting caught with a big shot in the 5th round that broke his jaw. In the second half of the fight, Valdez fought a lot smarter in boxing and avoiding the shots from Quigg. Valdez is ready to resume his career in December or January. He’ll be meeting with his doctor to get clearance to resume his career. There’s no word that Valdez’s promoters at Top Rank plan on matching him against. Valdez says he wants to move up to super featherweight in the near future, but for the time being, he wants to face 126 pound champions Leo Santa Cruz, Carl Frampton and Miguel Berchelt. Interim WBO featherweight champion Frampton figures to be in the picture for Valdez’s 2019 schedule. That’s when the WBO will likely order Valdez to face the 31-year-old Frampton. That’s going to be a tough one for Valdez, considering the punching power, talent and experience that Frampton has going for him. Frampton has only been beaten once and that was against Leo Santa Cruz, who used a combination of boxing and slugging to get the better of him.