By Dan Ambrose: Canelo Alvarez is hitting the weights hard working on his underdeveloped legs ahead of his unification fight against Billy Joe Saunders on May 8th.
Canelo (55-1-2, 37 KOs) is doing full squats without a knee brace with appears to be 315 lbs. Talk about risky, eh?
Unfortunately, the form that Canelo is using during the squats could put him at a MAJOR risk for a back or a knee injury. Let’s hope that Canelo, 30, doesn’t blow out a knee or herniate his back during training camp. I wonder where Canelo’s trainer Eddy Reynoso is?
Will it help Canelo to be working on his legs?
One other downside of Canelo trying to develop his legs is he could add weight, which will make it tougher for him to get down to the 168-lb limit.
For Canelo to be tinkering with his leg strength at this point in his long 16-year professional career could be a mistake.
It would be like having the late home run king Babe Ruth work on his pipestem legs late in his career. Would it have helped Ruth? Probably not, and it might have hurt him if he suffered a knee injury, and could no longer drive the ball out of the park the way he had earlier.
Canelo could be making a huge mistake in working out with weights? He’s got those toothpick Babe Ruth legs, and it’s doubtful that he ever will be able to develop a lot of strength in them.
Additionally, being bulky in the legs isn’t what Canelo needs for a fight against the fleet of foot WBO super middleweight champion Saunders (30-0, 14 KOs).
Canelo will have his WBA and WBC 168-lb titles at stake when he faces Saunders in the main event on DAZN at the Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
The Mexican star has been on a roll career-wise since his controversial 12 round majority decision against Gennadiy Golovkin.
Since that fight, Canelo has beaten Rocky Fielding, Daniel Jacobs, Sergey Kovalev, Callum Smith, and Avni Yildirim. Those are relatively good fighters, but not the elite in their respective divisions.
The knock that Canelo has been getting from the fans is he’s become a careful opportunist, picking beatable opposition while steering around the best.
But the casual boxing fans are none the wiser for it, and they’re not giving Canelo any stick for fighting the likes of Yildirim, Fielding, Kovalev, Smith, and Jacobs.
Alvarez needs to start fighting better opposition
Canelo has two more arguably opportunist-level opponents in Saunders and Caleb Plant to get by before he unifies the super middleweight division. Saunders and Plant are both belt-holders.
Once Canelo gets those two fights out of the way, it’s going to get interesting to see where he goes from there. Will Canelo start taking the risky fights against David Benavidez, Golovkin, Artur Beterbiev, Jermall Charlo and Dimitry Bivol or will he go the easy route against Ryota Murata?