By Dan Ambrose: Canelo Alvarez vs. Callum Smith is now a done deal for December 19th on DAZN in a fight that should provide fireworks. The fight is expected to land in Texas, according to Mike Coppinger.
Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn hasn’t revealed who will be in the co-feature bout n the card. Fans are hoping that the lightweight clash between Ryan Garcia and Luke Campbell will be the chief support for the Canelo vs. Callum card.
Hearn has already said that can’t happen because Ryan Garcia is with Golden Boy Promotions, and the card will be promoted by them.
Callum is made to order for Canelo
Smith is a good match-up for Canelo, considering he can’t fight on the inside, and he’s going to be easy pickings for the Mexican star. Callum’s inside fighting ability is on par with Rocky Fielding, a fighter that Canelo easily knocked out in the third round in December 2018.
Canelo-Smith will show two different styles of fighting. Smith fights with the European style of fighting staying on the outside, jabbing and throwing hard shots.
Canelo has the western style of fighting in close and working over his less-skilled opposition. Callum is a good fighter when he’s able to stay at range, but he’s lost when his opponents get in close.
Canelo (53-1-2, 36 KOs) is a free agent now after leaving DAZN, but he’ll be back fighting on that streaming platform for this match against WBA Super World super middleweight champion Smith (27-0, 19 KOs).
Compared to Canelo’s last fight against a shot 36-year-old WBO light-heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev, this is an upgrade. Smith, 30, may not be the best fighter at 168, but he’s in his prime and not old.
Hopefully, for Smith’s sake, he’s been training already because if not, he’ll only have four weeks to get ready for this match. That’s about the same amount of time that Kovalev had in getting ready for Canelo last November.
Smith will need to keep Canelo on the outside
If Smith lets Canelo get in close for any length of time on December 19th, he’ll be taken out early like Fielding.
Smith was well-prepared for his last fight in November against John Ryder, and still had a lot of problems beating him by a controversial 12 round decision. Callum looked like he was in serious distress during the fight with Ryder.
It was lucky for Callum that Ryder isn’t a big puncher because he would have taken him out if he had any power. Smith can take a good shot, but he was wearing down and getting brused up against Ryder. It’s hard to imagine Smith lasting long with Canelo delivering big punches on the inside to the body and head.
Smith’s best chance of winning this fight is to go all out in the first three rounds, and hope that he can clip Canelo with a big shot like he did against Rocky Fielding in stopping him in the first round in 2015.
Canelo will be fighting for the first time in thirteen months when he shares the ring with Callum Smith on December 19th.
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