By Trevor McIntyre: Rocky Fielding isn’t going to let Saul Canelo Alvarez keep him realizing his dream of defeating him when the two of them square off on December 15 at Madison Square Garden in New York. Fielding (27-1, 15 KOs) sees himself winning the fight and continuing to hold onto his WBA ‘regular’ super middleweight title.
The 5’8” Canelo (50-1-2, 34 KOs) has almost the same height and reach as the 5’9” John ‘The Gorilla’ Ryder, who Fielding just barely squeaked by in beating him by a controversial 12 round split decision last year in April 2017 in Liverpool, England.
The 6’1” Fielding had a lot of problems deal with Ryder’s aggressiveness despite having a four inch height and five inch reach advantage. Fielding still won the fight, but it was closer than it should have been given his size advantage over him. Canelo is faster, and more powerful than Ryder. If Fielding is going to beat Canelo, he’s going to need to figure out how to take advantage of his size advantage over him.
“He’s moving up from middleweight, I am big super-middleweight, I’ve got the height and the reach so I am up against a tough fighter, one of the elite fighters, but I’ve got to be in it to win it,” Fielding said to skysports.com about Canelo Alvarez.
Fielding probably won’t weigh more than 185 pounds on December 15 when he gets inside the ring with Canelo Alvarez, which means that he’ll be around the same weight as the Mexican star. Fielding’s only advantage in the fight will be his size, but not his weight or power. Canelo will have the boxing fans on his side given that the fight will be taking place in the U.S, and the judges will likely be on his side as well.
Golden Boy and Canelo have picked Fielding out of the batch of super middleweight champions due to their belief that he’s someone that they can beat without any hiccups, but they could be in for a big surprise o December 15. Fielding ha the power, size and the boxing ability to defeat Canelo Alvarez.
“I am going there confident of winning it and I’m confident I can win it, I’m not going there just because it’s Canelo at Madison Square Garden. I am going there to defend my title,” Fielding said.
Fielding has the talent to win this fight. He just needs to make sure he fights his fight and doesn’t get drawn into Canelo’s game. Fielding needs to know going into the fight that Canelo will likely win if it goes to the scorecards without him being knocked down two or three times. Gennady Golovkin failed to get wins in his last two fights against Canelo in which appeared to be robberies in favor of the Mexican fighter. If a popular fighter like Golovkin wasn’t able to get a decision against Canelo, then a visiting fighter from England will likely need to give him a real beating for them to have a chance of winning the fight.