Canelo will beat Chavez Jr. says Amir Khan

Boxingnews24.com

By Jeff Aranow: Amir Khan is one of the many people who are picking Saul Canelo Alvarez to defeat former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr (50-2-1, 32 KOs). on May 6 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Khan was knocked out by Canelo just last year, and he came away from that experience in awe of the Golden Boy star’s talent. Khan has already picked Canelo to defeat middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin 37-0, 33 KOs). Khan now sees that as an easy fight for Canelo where he totally dominated the 34-year-old Golovkin.

Khan explains away Canelo’s loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. from 2013, saying that it was a matter of timing. Mayweather picked the right time of Canelo’s career to defeat him before he had hit his prime. Khan feels that Canelo was in his prime last year when he fought him. Canelo’s promoters at Golden Boy still think he hasn’t hit his prime.

“I’ve got Canelo all day long,” said Khan to Fighthype.com in picking Canelo over Chavez Jr. “I fought Canelo. I like Chavez. That fight, I give it to Canelo, because he hits so hard and he’s solid. So I give that fight to him. He’s quicker, he’s sharp, and he moves well. He’s got good feet. I just think he’s going to win that fight, probably by KO,” said Khan.

It’s a logical choice to go with Canelo as the favorite in this fight because Chavez Jr. looked really slow in his last three fights against Dominik Britsch, Marcos Reyes and Andrzej Fonfara. Chavez Jr. was never one of those fighters that were known for their hand speed, but he seems to have slowed down since 2012. His current trainer Nacho Beristain is working on increasing his hand speed. It might not be possible for him to do this. Chavez Jr. will never be fast. But if he can defend himself against the big shots from Canelo, he could have a chance of pulling off an upset.

Khan says he got suckered into a trap against Canelo in losing to him by a 6th round knockout. Khan says Canelo used a feint by making him think he was going to throw a left hand jab. He then hit him with a big right hand that knocked him unconscious. However, in looking at the replay of the knockout, Canelo threw a straight right hand and Khan had his hands down and was nailed by the shot. There was nothing special that Canelo did in landing the punch. He just reached back and hit Khan. At the time, Khan looked very tired from having moved for the first 5 rounds of the contest. Khan used to be able to move for 12 rounds when he was fighting at 140. But in bulking up to middleweight, he was slower, and he didn’t possess the required stamina to stay on the move for the entire fight.

“Chavez looks good in the pictures, but I think Canelo is going to use that to his advantage,” said Khan. ”He’s going to use that extra bit of weight and strength and speed. He’s going to win the fight all day long in my opinion. But this is boxing, anything can happen. One thing is Chavez has good power. Chavez might hit him with a good shot and hurt him. I’ve seen Canelo get hurt before, and I’ve seen Canelo get hit a lot as well. So definitely, it is a kind of great fight. But I lean more towards Canelo,” said Khan.

Chavez Jr. does have very good power when he’s throwing combinations. He’s not nearly as powerful when he’s throwing one punch at a time. The only way that Chavez Jr. is going to be able to hurt Canelo with his power shots is if he can back him up against the ropes and unload on him. If Canelo stays in the center of the ring, which is probably where his coaches are telling him to stay, it’s going to make it all but impossible for Chavez Jr. to put his punches together in landing consecutive shots. It’s difficult for Chavez Jr. though because he’s slow, and he’ll be giving away a lot of speed. Chavez Jr’s style of fighting favors Canelo in a big way.

Chavez Jr. moves forward slowly, leaning over to get low enough to throw his body shots. Chavez Jr’s fighting style is one that you normally see from the shorter fighters, not guys that are 6’0” like him. If Chavez Jr. is going to fight like that against Canelo on May 6, then he’s going to need to make sure that he keeps his guard up so that he can avoid getting hit with Canelo’s big power shots. Chavez Jr. is probably about as slow as James Kirkland was. He might be even slower than Kirkland. Canelo looked so much faster than Kirkland in their fight in 2015. This allowed Canelo to hit Kirkland with big shots to knock him out quickly without having to take much punishment in return.

“If Canelo fought against Triple G, all day long Canelo. I do think Canelo, yeah, before too,” said Khan in stating that he had already thought that Canelo would beat Golovkin before his fight with Daniel Jacobs. “I always said Canelo would beat Triple G. I like Triple G. I just think that with Canelo, he’s underestimated quite a lot,”

It’s very difficult to say for sure whether Canelo would beat Golovkin. The things that Golovkin is capable of doing, jabbing and defending well, would give Canelo a lot of problems. Golovkin’s jab alone would be a big issue for Canelo. Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Erislandy Lara both showed that Canelo can be beaten with a jab alone. The judges gave Lara a raw deal in giving the fight to Canelo, who landed only 31 head shots in the entire 12 round fight.

Two of the judges gave Canelo the win. Golovkin would take away Canelo’s left hook, and force him to try and beat him with his jab and right hands. I don’t think Canelo can beat Golovkin with his jab because he doesn’t have the reach. Canelo telegraphs his right hand in the same way David Lemieux does. Golovkin is not going to get hit with Canelo’s right hands. I think the Canelo-Golovkin fight could turn out to be really one-sided in favor of Golovkin. It might be another Lemieux fight. Canelo isn’t able to move like Jacobs, and he doesn’t have his height or reach.

“When Floyd beat him, he beat him at the right time,” said Khan about Canelo’s loss to Mayweather. “He probably beat Canelo at the best time of his career. When I fought him, he was at the peak of his career. Huge, huge, he was big,” said Khan about Canelo’s weight. I was hitting him and he wasn’t budging one bit. So I could see he was never hurt. He was taking shots and waiting for me to slow down. I was making him miss a lot. I could see he had a plan, and it worked for him,” said Khan.

Mayweather was smart to get Canelo to agree to fight him at 152. Canelo looked weak at the weigh-in for that fight. But he wasn’t going to beat Mayweather even if the fight was at 154. Mayweather stayed on the outside and jabbed Canelo all night long. Mayweather took away Canelo’s favorite punch, his left hook counter. Without that punch, the boxing world saw how one dimensional Canelo is. He’s a good fighter if you let him land his left hook. But if he can’t land that shot, then he’s in trouble.

Khan was never going to be able to hurt Canelo because he had to move up in weight from welterweight to fight Canelo at a catch weight of 155 pounds. Canelo looked like he rehydrated to 175-185. He was too big for Khan, who came into the fight at 164. Canelo looked like he was more than 10 pounds heavier than Khan.

At 35, Golovkin has gone through his best moments, says Robert Garcia

Well known trainer Robert Garcia thinks Gennady Golovkin has seen his best days. He thinks he’s no longer the fighter he once was. Garcia points to Golovkin’s age of 35 for his off performance against Daniel Jacobs last March. Garcia says the grueling training camps that Golovkin has had to through during his career might be one of the leading factors in him wearing down. In Golovkin’s latest training camp, he was sparring hard hitting light heavyweight David Benavidez. Getting hit repeatedly by a guy as big and as strong as Benavidez for a full training camp might have worn Golovkin down. At Golovkin’s age, he shouldn’t spar much at all. Sergio Martinez wasn’t sparring a lot in the later part of his career and was still finding a lot of success.

Garcia talks as if Jacobs had a great fight against Golovkin. The reality is, Jacobs did not fight well either. They looked bad. Jacobs missed constantly, and he never was able to get out of the way of Golovkin’s jabs.

“Weight probably did have a lot to do with it, and how he prepared for the fight,” said trainer Robert Garcia to Villianfy Media about his fight against Golovkin. “There really wasn’t that many punches where you said, ‘Wow, he really took that punch.’ There weren’t that many the way he fought,” said Garcia. “He fought smart and avoided all those big shots from Triple G. Of course, it was not only [Chris] Algieri’s work. It was also his trainer’s work. He wanted that win, and he never gave up. Everything put together, it was a good fight,” said Garcia.

Golovkin wasn’t trying to hit Jacobs a lot with his best shots. He was using his jab. That was the game plan, according to his trainer Abel Sanchez. Jacobs wasn’t landing much either. Garcia didn’t mention that. Jacobs seemed to be mainly doing a good job of moving but not a good job of fighting. If he had done a good job of throwing punches, the judges would have given him the win. Jacobs is celebrated more for surviving the full 12 round fight against GGG.

“Before the fight, I thought Jacobs was going to give him a good fight,” said Garcia. ”I thought at 35, Triple G already went through his best moments already. He’s 35; he’s had a lot of fights. He’s had a lot of training camps. Not only is it the fights, because he hasn’t taken any beatings, but just the preparations, the training camps, the headaches of everything, and the dieting. It takes [a lot out of you]. At 35, the body is not going to take it as well anymore. I think the age made a big factor in that [fight],” said Garcia about Golovkin in his fight against Jacobs.