By Dan Ambrose: Canelo Alvarez is working on strengthening his left hook as he prepares for his next fight in September. The former four-division world champion Canelo (53-1-2, 36 KOs) still doesn’t have an opponent nailed down, but there’s a good possibility he’ll be facing Billy Joe Saunders.
Canelo wants to stay in shape to be ready for September or October. The Mexican star fought since last November when he wiped out Sergey Kovalev in a 10th round knockout.
Alvarez couldn’t knockout GGG or Jacobs
The punching power of Canelo isn’t good enough at 160 or 168 for him to knock out the better fighters in the division. Canelo is going to need to focus more on his defense rather than his power if he doesn’t want to get hurt.
It’s a waste of time for Canelo to be focusing on body punching because he rarely gets a chance to throw those types of shots against the bigger lighter. If Canelo moves back up to 175, his body punching may help him against Beterbiev. Canelo doesn’t seem interested in fighting Beterbiev because he gave up his WBO belt without fighting him.
It was a good win, but Canelo didn’t get the credit that he would have had he fought one of the elite light heavyweights like Artur Beterbiev, Dmitry Bivol or Oleksandr Gvozdyk. Kovalev is just an old guy now, who picked up the WBO belt from Eleider Alvarez last year.
Canelo, 29, posts on social media himself working on a heavy bag. He looks powerful as usual, but a little slower than he used to be. He seems to be starting to lose hand speed as he approaches his 30th birthday.
That’s not a big deal for Canelo, though, especially if he faces a non-puncher like Saunders (29-0, 14 KOs). That’s someone that Canelo can beat without too many problems.
Canelo has a lot of options
Canelo had hoped to fight Gennadiy Golovkin in September, but the Kazakhstan fighter’s trainer Johnathon Banks has already broken the news that he WON’T be fighting Canelo next. He wants to defend his IBF 160-pound title against Kamil Sceremeta.
Canelo doesn’t have to fight Saunders. If he wanted to fight a better opponent, he could face WBC middleweight champion Jermall Charlo, WBO champ Demetrius Andrade, Sergiy Derevyanchenko, or Callum Smith. Those guys are dangerous, though. Hence, Saunders is expected to be next.
If Canelo is unable to fight Saunders due to him having problems traveling from England, then that’ll narrow down his options to one of the U.S based fighters. Canelo can face better opposition in the U.S than Saunders, but he would have to be willing to risk getting beaten.
Here are some of the options:
- Demetrius Andrade
- Caleb Plant
- David Benavidez
- Jermall Charlo
- Sergey Derevyanchenko
The most apparent fight for Canelo out of that bunch is Andrade. Canelo is going to have to show that he’s willing to fight dangerous guys at 160 because he’s failed to do that at 168 and 175. He took easy fights in those divisions against Rocky Fielding and Kovalev.
Canelo should give the American fans what they want in taking on Andrade and forgetting about Saunders. There are a time and place for Canelo to fight Saunders, and right now, he can’t afford to do that. DAN needs to bring their subscribers back, and they can’t do that if he’s going to be taking weak opponents like Saunders.
DAZN needs Canelo to lead the way in fighting the best because GGG doesn’t appear to be doing that. If Canelo came back against Andrade this year, a lot of boxing fans would get up for that made.