By Sean Jones: Saul Canelo Alvarez is lifting weights in trying to add strength for his fight against Daniel Jacobs next month. Oddly enough, Canelo doesn’t look as defined and ripped like he did in his two fights against Gennady Golovkin. Canelo’s physique looks more like it used to before his two fights with GGG. There’s still time for Canelo to cut up like a bodybuilder with a month to go before the Jacobs fight, but right now, he’s not looking like the shredded fighter we saw against Golovkin twice.
After his easy fight against Rocky Fielding last December, Canelo (51-1-2, 35 KOs) has got a tough opponent on his hands in IBF middleweight champion Jacobs (35-2, 29 KOs) on DAZN on May 4 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Canelo is lifting weights like he’s getting ready for a bodybuilding competition. Sean Jones is wondering what Canelo is thinking in lifting all those weights to build up muscles. This is a boxing match, not a bodybuilding competition. Unless Canelo intends on wrestling Jacobs to the ground and pinning him, he’s barking up the wrong tree in lifting weights to add muscle.
What Canelo needs to do is get on the track field to build up some badly endurance. Speaking for myself, I’m from a track background. I was 100 meter and 200 meter sprinter in high school and college, and quite good at it. The guys that were built like Canelo on my track teams, they always had stamina problems in running events. One 400 meter lap around the track, and that would be it for them. Canelo is built just like them. Canelo continues to hit the weights in hopes of getting an edge against Jacobs on May 4, he could be in for a rude awakening in this fight. Jacobs will cardio advantage in a big way in this fight. He could end up boxing circles around Canelo.
This is a fight where the 5’8″ Canelo will be giving away 3 1/2″ inches in height to the 5’11 1/2″ Jacobs, and the same in reach. It’s going to be a really hard fight for Canelo if he can’t close the distance.
Adding extra muscle may not be the answer for Canelo. In this fight, he’s going to need some cardio work in a major way. Jacobs is a mover, and he stop on a dime to deliver precise punches with knockout power. Canelo seems to be training for a stationary fighter that can trap against the ropes and bludgeon into submission like he did in his fights against James Kirkland and Liam Smith. Jacobs is a different fighter than those guys. He’s not going to let Canelo walk him down and smash him with shots on the inside the way he likes to do against his opponents. Canelo got away with fighting like that against former WBA ‘regular’ super middleweight champion Rocky Fielding last December, being that the British fighter let Canelo walk straight into him to land his body shots. Jacobs isn’t going to let him do that. Unless Canelo has his track shoes on when he gets inside the ring with Jacobs on May 4, he’s going to be eating jabs and long right hands all night long from the New Yorker.
This will be Canelo’s first real fight of his 11-fight contract with DAZN. It’s officially fight #2 for Canelo with DAZN, but his first was the mismatch against Rocky Fielding last December, and you can’t really call that fight. Fielding was a guy that was knocked out in the first round by Callum Smith in November 2015. Although Fielding came back and captured the World Boxing Association ‘regular’ super middleweight title last July in stopping Tyron Zeuge, he did it against a weak champion that many boxing fans felt was the weak link among the 168 lb belt holders at the time. Canelo’s match against Jacobs will be his first real fight of his huge $365 million, five-year contract with DAZN. It’s going to be intriguing to see how well Canelo performs. He didn’t look great in his two fights against Gennady Golovkin. This writer saw Canelo losing both fights, which took at at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. That’s where Canelo will be fighting Jacobs in a unification on May 4. Jacobs agreed to fight Canelo at the venue, but he’s hoping that he doesn’t end up on the receiving end of a controversial decision like Gennady did last September. By the way, Jacobs thinks Golovkin beat Canelo twice. Jacobs is hoping the judges do a good job of scoring the fight because he doesn’t want to find himself on the receiving end of a controversial decision loss like Gennady did.