Alvarez-Gomez: Alfonso has to run if he wants to make it past six rounds

By Boxing News - 08/06/2011 - Comments

Image: Alvarez-Gomez: Alfonso has to run if he wants to make it past six roundsBy Dan Ambrose: The Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Victor Ortiz undercard isn’t well served by the match-up between WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez (37-0-1, 27 KO’s) against #6 ranked World Boxing Council contender Alfonso Gomez (23-4-2, 12 KO’s) on September 17th. The Mayweather-Ortiz and Alvarez-Gomez fights are taking place at split locations but shown on HBO Pay-per-view back to back on the 17th.

While the Mayweather-Ortiz fight is a good one on paper, the Alvarez vs. Gomez fight promises to be a mismatch. Gomez really doesn’t belong at the number #6 spot in the junior middleweight division. Gomez has average power even at welterweight, which is where he normally fights. He’s a B level welterweight fighting a good junior middleweight.

I don’t rate the 21-year-old Alvarez as an A class junior middleweight, mostly because of his youth and lack of experience. However, he’s bigger, stronger and a much better boxer than Gomez. Alvarez can do a lot of things in the ring, as he showed recently in beating Ryan Rhodes and Matthew Hatton. Gomez is kind of a one-trick pony, who slugs but doesn’t have the kind of power needed to be a successful slugger against quality opposition like Alvarez.

Gomez really only has one chance of beating Alvarez, and that’s by trying to box his way to a decision. Gomez has to use his legs to keep out of the way of Alvarez’s heavy shots, because he’ll wear him down quick if Gomez tries to trade. Alvarez will have likely watched video of Gomez’s loss to Miguel Cotto in 2008 and note that Gomez has problems taking hard body shots.

Alvarez is an even better body puncher than Cotto, and is good at ripping double and triple hooks to the body. Gomez won’t be able to handle those kinds of shots if he stands in front of Alvarez and tries to trade on September 17th. Gomez has got to run and hope that Alvarez doesn’t catch up to him to take him out.