Canelo Alvarez uses ice baths filled with cold water to prepare for his title defense against the young phenom Jaime Munguia on May 4th. This move shows his worry and desperation heading into this clash against the talented challenger.
The redheaded superstar Canelo (60-2-2, 39 KOs) is taking his training to another level with the ice baths, hoping it will give him the edge he needs to defeat the 27-year-old Munguia (43-0, 34 KOs), who has a Dmitry Bivol-esque style of fighting that is 100% all wrong for Alvarez.
If Canelo doesn’t have enough left in the tank, no amount of ice baths will save him from the relentless assault that Munguia will unleash on him on May 4th in their fight on Amazon Prime and DAZN PPV in Las Vegas. Getting old is no fun, obviously, but ice baths won’t help.
The ‘Polar Bear’ Strategy
The Polar Bear approach to training by the 33-year-old Canelo, putting himself through torture by immersing himself in frigid ice baths, is questionable.
The science behind it involves the ice water removing metabolic wastes and reducing inflation.
The last thing Canelo needs is to develop hypothermia in camp, putting his health at risk and winding up in a hospital instead of the ring.
It might be better for Canelo to ice whatever body part gives him problems, such as an elbow, hand, bicep, or shoulder. There’s a macho quality about fighters using ice baths, but whether it helps is questionable.
Munguia isn’t going to take much notice of this ice stuff from Canelo and suddenly loses his courage for battle. He won’t be cowering in fear because Canelo took an ice bath.
It looks brave for Canelo to be willing to put his body through sheer pain and agony with his immersion in ice, but it will intimidate Munguia to throw off his game for this fight.
Canelo’s REAL Problem
On May 4th, Munguia will come in with guns blazing and look to storm the Bastille. If Canelo hasn’t improved his game since his one-sided loss to Bivol in 2022, he’ll get dominated by Munguia, who is much more capable of fighting at a fast pace than he can at this stage of his career.
Rather than focusing on ice baths, Canelo should be trying to figure out how to throw more punches to match Munguia’s high output because this guy is like a punching machine.
