By Dan Ambrose: Floyd Mayweather Jr. still believes that Canelo Alvarez copied his same fighting moves and become a fan of his after getting getting “SCHOOLED” by him in their fight in September 2013. Mayweather completely dominated Canelo in beating him by a 12 round majority decision.
After Canelo’s defeat, his fighting style changed overnight with him showing a lot of the same moves that Mayweather had exhibited. It took a while for Canelo to properly absorb Mayweather’s teachings.
As we saw in Canelo’s controversial 12 round split decision win in 2014 over Erislandy Lara, Alvarez still hadn’t learned enough from the defeat to beat a quality fighter. Lara was viewed as the winner against Canelo, but the Mexican star was given the benefit of the doubt on two of the judges’ scorecards.
Mayweather says Canelo has copied his moves
“If you guys haven’t noticed, once I took Canelo to school, he’s using my same moves on the other guys, the same moves that I did,” said Mayweather during his UK tour this week. “As I said before, he’s always a fan.
“As far as the Canelo fight, I look at it like, I’m pretty sure you guys have seen this movie that came in the 80s called ‘The Karate Kid.’ So I’m Mr. Miyagi and that’s Daniel-son [Canelo],” said Mayweather.
It’s plain to see that Canelo has adopted a lot of the same ring moves that Mayweather used against him in his subsequent fights during his career. However, Canelo’s ring IQ didn’t improve enough for him to dominate Gennadiy Golovkin, who is easily the best opponent he’s faced since his loss to Mayweather.
The way that Canelo fought GGG in their first fight in 2017 by fighting with his back against the ropes, it’s not how Mayweather would have fought him. With Canelo fighting with his back against the ropes, Golovkin got the better of him in jabbing him from the outside all night.
The judges scoring the fight a draw was viewed as a gift to the more popular fighter Canelo, and not a reflection of what had happened in the fight. Canelo made a bad decision in fighting against the ropes, and you wouldn’t have seen Mayweather make that same mistake if he’d fought GGG.
Floyd: I schooled Canelo when I was 37
“I’m older. What people fail to realize is I’m two years older than Manny Pacquiao,” said Mayweather in responding to a question of whether boxing fans had to wait a few years too late to watch him fight Pacquiao. “So if we fight and he’s 28 and I’m 30, I’m still older. So the advantage is still going to be on his side because he’s younger. There’s no difference from when I faced Canelo.
“You’re at your best when you’re between the ages of 18 and 28. Between 18 and 28, is when you’re at your best. I schooled Canelo when I was what, 35, 37? I don’t even know how old I was when I schooled the kid. But as I said, this is just a different level. I’m at a different level.
“These fighters are not on my level. These fighters do not think like me, and these fighters don’t get the footwork that I got. And as I said before, I know what I’m doing inside that squared circle. I don’t just talk a good game. I go out there and produce every time,” said Mayweather.
It’s unbelievable how great Mayweather looked at 37 in beating Canelo. Gennadiy Golovkin is the same age as Mayweather was when he fought Canelo, he’s seen as being shot fighter in the eyes of a lot of boxing fans. Mayweather was a young 37 when he fought Canelo, and he put on a masterclass performance.
At the time that Mayweather fought Canelo, the young Golden Boy star was basically a counter puncher, who relied on his left hook. Canelo fought a lot like Ryan Garcia does now in looking for the left hook counter, and not having much variety to his game. Mayweather neutralized Canelo’s left hook by jabbing.
Did Mayweather have a greater impact on Canelo’s career than his trainer Reynoso?
In watching Canelo fight the likes of Alfredo Angulo, Gennadiy Golovkin and Miguel Cotto after his loss to Mayweather, it’s easy to spot Floyd’s moves. In other words, Canelo learned from Mayweather, and it’s helped make him a better fighter. Mayweather views himself as having the same mentoring position to Canelo as Mr. Miyagi was for ‘The Karate Kid,’ Daniel LaRusso for the 1984 movie.
Just how much of a role Mayweather had in improving Canelo’s skills is unclear. You can make a strong argument that Mayweather had a greater impact on Canelo’s career than his chubby trainer Eddy Reynoso. That’s not a knock on Reynoso, but it’s hard not to see the big improvements that Canelo made after his loss to Mayweather.
Canelo learned more from observation than coaching?
If Mayweather did have a greater impact on Canelo’s career, it suggests that Alvarez learned more from watching other fighters than he did from his trainer Reynoso. Young fighters like Ryan Garcia seems to believe that he’s going to improve his career training with Reynoso, but that not be the case. If Ryan doesn’t learn from watching other fighters, a Canelo seems to have done in learning from Mayweather, then he could be wasting his time with Reynoso.
For the Canelo fans that say that Mayweather beat him before he was properly experienced, Alvarez was 42-0-1 at the time he took the fight and had roughly the same amount of fights as the 44-0 Mayweather.
Canelo lost to Mayweather not because he lacked experience. He was beaten because he wasn’t as good as Mayweather, and he still isn’t.
Although one judge scored the fight a draw, most boxing fans had Mayweather winning 10 of the 12 rounds against the completely over-matched 22-year-old Canelo.
The two rounds that Canelo won were arguably charity rounds given to Mayweather after he eased off on the Mexican star in the championship rounds.
I expect to get hit when I go to war – Mayweather
“Absolutely not, the second one was a little tougher,” said Mayweather in talking about his 2 fights against Marcos Maidana. “In the first one, what he did was he came out like a bull, and of curse, I kept my composure just like a matador, I kept my composure. I got hit by a head-butt actually, but like I said before, that comes with the territory.
“So you can’t expect to go to war and not get hit. When I go to war, I expect to get hit, but it’s what you do after you get hit. Are you going to lay down, are you going to quit and are you going to cry? Are you going to wave the white flag or are you going to keep fighting? I’m a warrior, I’m a champion and I’m going to keep fighting,” said Mayweather.
Floyd is retired from boxing actual fighters. So when you hear him talking in the present tense about his career, he’s referring to his fights against MMA fighters and not boxers. It’s easy-pickings for Mayweather to be fighting UFC fighters Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov.
