By Sean Jones: Austin Trout says Canelo Alvarez should have let his hands go move and knocked out the ring-rusty, too-thin, passive version of Jermell Charlo that he fought last Saturday night in Las Vegas.
Trout feels that Canelo (60-2-2,39 KOs) should won more emphatically than he did because he thinks he could have knocked out Jermell if he’s attacked him in a giant wave that would have caused him to cave in.
Canelo fought like he was afraid of tempting his gas tank and being put in a vulnerable position against Jermell. Say what you want about Jermell not trying hard to win. If he spotted weakness in Canelo, he would have stormed the trenches and flurried on him.
Like in virtually all of Canelo’s fights since 2011, he failed to flurry on his opponent to try and finish him. The last time Canelo unloaded with a storm of shots against one of his hurt foes was against Ryan Rhodes back in June 2011.
Even in that fight, Canelo waited until the twelfth round before going for broke to score the knockout. The reason he waited was because he didn’t want to gas out.
Canelo should have knocked out Jermell
“He seemed scared, and there was a shot that he caught on his glove, and he was like, ‘Nah, I’m not doing none of that,'” said Austin Trout to MillCity Boxing, talking about Jermell Charlo not putting in a great effort to win against Canelo Alvarez.
“I think he should have got that version of 154 Charlo out of there. It wasn’t like it was a sharp Charlo that was bringing it. It was a Charlo that was trying to survive.”
All the mountain training in Lake Tahoe that Canelo did for this camp didn’t make improvements in stamina, and this writer can understand why. Canelo wasn’t running the hills the way he needed to work to increase his cardio.
In the small clips showing Canelo running, he was jogging slowly, not pushing himself, and jogging at almost a fast walking pace. You’re not going to improve your cardio by jogging snail’s pace, as We saw Canelodoing.
“The thing is, I don’t know what his plan A was. Was it to move? Was it to hit & move because it just seemed like he went to whatever that was and didn’t try a plan B, C, or nothing?” said Trout. “His corner [Derrick James] had nothing to give him. They had no instructions for him. It was, ‘Let them hands go.’
“Not at first,” said Trout when asked if he thinks Jermell just came for the check. “I think he came to really win, but then he was like, ‘Let me get this money. I’m not going to get knocked out, so I lose my stock.‘”
Jermell probably didn’t think that his stock would drop by putting in minimal effort to win. He likely felt that just going the distance and not getting knocked out was enough for him to return to the 154-lb division with his head held high and then pick up another massive payday against Terrence Crawford.
“I think he did that after a while because afterward, he said, ‘I’m proud of myself.’ If I was him, I’d say it was the layoff. It would have been a different fight if I had a fight in the last fifteen months. That’s his best bet,” said Trout.
“No, I don’t think so,” said Trout when asked if he feels he lost to a better version of Canelo in 2013. “After Canelo lost to Floyd, his ring IQ got a lot better, and even his footwork got better.
Inactivity hurt Jermell
“I think Canelo got a lot better, and Jermell did too. Charlo was on that uprising, and then he had that fifteen-month [layoff],” said Trout. “You don’t fight for a year and a half. All that momentum just crashed & burned. Then he comes back and fights Canelo. I think it would have been a better fight if he had a little activity.”
15 months of inactivity definitely didn’t help Jermell, but what could he do? If he had told Canelo that he wanted a tune-up fight first, the Mexican star would have moved on and never revisited the fight.
In some respects, Jermell would have been better off if he missed out on the Canelo fight because he’d still be undisputed at 154 and wouldn’t have been stripped of his WBO title for swerving his mandatory Tim Tszyu.
If Jermell had returned from his 15-month layoff and defended against Tszyu, he probably would have lost worse because he would’ve been getting little up by the powerful, young & hungry WBO mandatory challenger.
Unlike Canelo, Tszyu would have done all out looking to score a knockout, and he wouldn’t have been afraid to empty his gas tank while trying.
“Charlo wouldn’t have lost nothing. He had nothing to lose for real unless he did that,” said Trout. You don’t got nothing to lose in this fight unless you just quit or you stank the place up. He didn’t do it right. I don’t know how he made 154 for real because, from what I understand, this man walks around between 190 and 200 lbs.
“So, he had to lose some weight to get to 168, but instead of gaining some muscle or losing the weight, right? His body looked like he didn’t put on any muscle, and I would think that would be something you would try to do,” said Trout.
This was the second time in the last two months that one of trainer Derrick James’ fighters had lost and looked poorly trained with no adjustments made. Derrick’s fighter, Errol Spence Jr., looked just as bad in his loss to Terence Crawford last July, and the difference was the Nebraska native was willing to go all out for the knockout.
“Coming up two weight classes, that was something that you got to do. I thought he looked good. He could have let his hands go more,” said Trout about Canelo.
