By Aragon Garcia: Saul Canelo Alvarez is looking devastatingly powerful working out with his trainer Eddy Reynoso, and throwing body shots that looked like game finishers. Canelo (52-1-2, 35 KOs) is training for his title shot against WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev (34-3-1, 29 KOs) on November 2 at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas.
Body punching is going to be key for Canelo to win this fight. He can’t beat a monster puncher like Kovalev by staying on the outside, and trying to trade shots, Canelo must go after the soft spot in Kovalev’s armor, which has proven to be his body.
Saul Alvarez looks huge now
Canelo looks to be weighing in the 180s, and he’s going to be able to maintain that weight without the need of stripping off muscle and water to make the 175-pound weigh-in limit. Normally Canelo has to lose a lot of weight for him to make the middleweight limit of 160 lbs. he won’t have to do that now that he’s fighting at 175.
“I want to go down as one of the best fighters in Mexican and boxing history,” Canelo said to Fightnews.com. “Gennady Golovkin don’t represent anything for me,”
Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya has been talking about him facing Gennady Golovkin in a rematch next year. That’s not a fight that Canelo is interested in any longer. In Canelo’s eyes, he beat Gennady twice already, and the Kazakhstan fighter hasn’t shown a willingness since last year to take on the best. He’s had one safety first fight against Steve Rolls, and now he’s taking on Sergiy Derevyanchenko. That’s another safe bet for Golovkin.
Oscar De La Hoya pushing Canelo-GGG trilogy fight
De La Hoya said, “next year we will definitely see a third fight between Canelo and Golovkin. For now, let’s stay tuned for what’s next.”
Canelo didn’t like that De La Hoya is speaking for him “Oscar says lots of things that don’t make sense,” Canelo said. “Right now my focus is Kovalev and winning that fourth world title in four weight divisions.”
It’s wise for Canelo not to be looking past Kovalev. De La Hoya talking about the trilogy fight between Canelo and Golovkin in 2020 is way too premature at this point, because Kovalev has to be dealt with first. If Canelo takes his eyes off the ball, he could get stopped by the Russian Kovalev. As we saw in Kovalev’s last fight against Anthony Yarde, he still hits plenty hard.
Canelo can’t look past this fight even for a lucrative, career-enhancing rubber match against Golovkin next year. It might be a good thing for Canelo to fight Golovkin again, since that would give him the opportunity to close the traps of many of his critics. A lot of them think that Canelo lucked out in both fights with Golovkin. It’s not enough that Canelo out-boxed Golovkin twice. The fans want to see if he can do it a third fight.