Canelo’s shocking body transformation a sign of worry

Boxingnews24.com

By Chris Williams: Saul Canelo Alvarez has undergone a shocking body transformation for his September 16th fight against Gennady Golovkin that has some fans wondering what is going through the mind of the 27-year-old Mexican star. Canelo posted a photo of himself on Thursday on his social media site, and he looked like another person with his transformed physique, filled with bodybuilding muscles.

I think it’s a sign of weakness that Canelo has changed his body in such a dramatic way from his previous fights. As the saying goes, ‘if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.’ Canelo was fine at fighting in the low 170s. There was no reason for him to bulk up to 185-190 for the Golovkin fight. I think Canelo is insecure about himself for him to do this to his body.

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If Canelo feels he needs to pack on all this muscle on his frame just to face Golovkin, it speaks volumes about what’s going on inside the mind of the red-headed 27-year-old Mexican star. He seems to be REALLY worried. Canelo might be thinking of how badly this fight could end for him with Golovkin knocking him out in front of the entire work in the same way Canelo knocked out Amir Khan. It could end like that for Canelo. There’s no question about that. But for Canelo to transform his body the way he has in one training camp, I think increases the chances for him to be knocked out by Triple G.

It’s pretty easy to see how this fight could end badly for Canelo. The fight is going to be a fast paced fight, and Canelo is not going to be able to keep up with the pace and he’s going to wear down and get stopped. That’s way I see it. I always saw the fight ending like that though, because Canelo has always had stamina problems that were partially concealed by him facing less than the best for the last 3 years. Canelo’s had fights against Amir Khan, James Kirkland, Liam Smith, Miguel Cotto and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Those are less than the best fighters in their weight classes. When you’ve got your promoters at Golden Boy Promotions matching you against guys like that, it hides a fighter like Canelo’s stamina flaws. He was able to conceal his weaknesses because he wasn’t being matched against top level opposition.

Canelo’s body transformation is one of the most stunning that I’ve ever seen in my life. When you look at the before and after photos of Canelo, I don’t know how he was able to make the change in such a short period of time. As Floyd Mayweather Jr. says, “hard work and dedication.” But I think Canelo should have eased off on the body building exercises and focused on being trim and quick for the Golovkin fight. He’s asking for trouble being this big for the Golovkin fight.

Canelo doesn’t look like he’s trained for a boxing match against Golovkin. He looks like he’s trained for a bodybuilding contest. The only thing I can think of is Canelo is very insecure and worried about the Golovkin fight. Why else would a fighter transform his physique so dramatically? If you look at the before and after photos of how Canelo looked after his fight with Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in early May and compare it to how he’s looking now, you would have a hard time thinking it’s the same guy. Canelo looks nothing like the way he was before as far as his physique goes. I don’t know about the average fan, but it sends a red flag message to me that Canelo has a lot of worry and fear about facing Golovkin in 8 days from now. You don’t change your body the way Canelo in such a short period of time without there being some kind of worry. I’ve never seen a boxer change his body as dramatically as Canelo in a short period of time as he has. It’s shocking.

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In just 4 short months, Canelo has added what looks to be at least 10 lbs. of muscle to his frame from his previous fight against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. last May. Canelo already looked like he was in the upper 170s for that fight. The weight that Canelo has put on for the GGG fight has him looking like he’s in the 180s. Canelo looks like a light heavyweight now. For boxing fans that don’t know, the light heavyweight division begins at 175. Canelo looks heavier than that. I don’t know what Canelo is thinking in changing his body so drastically from his previous fight against Chavez Jr. The thing is, Canelo had already bulked up for the Chavez Jr. fight in adding what appeared to be at least 5-7 lbs. heavier than he had for his previous fight.

It’s going to be difficult for Canelo to take the weight off for him to make the 160 lb. weigh-in for the fight on 1 week from now. The weigh-in is on September 15th. I don’t know if Canelo can take off what appears to be 25-30 lbs. of water weight to get down from 185-190 to 160. Does he just blow it off for the sake of trying to win the fight? What I mean is, does Canelo weigh-in heavy, pay the weight penalty, and then look go beat Golovkin with his size advantage?

Canelo’s new body transformation is not going to intimidate Triple G. Canelo needs to know that right off the bat. Golovkin has sparred with plenty of light heavyweights and cruiserweights during his years as a pro. He’s not going to be worried about fighting a light heavyweight-sized Canelo on September 16. I think this is the wrong plan for Canelo for him to beat GGG. Canelo should have kept his weight down to where it was when he fought James Kirkland. I thought that was Canelo’s best weight of his career. He was as quick as a cat, mobile, powerful and agile. At that weight, Canelo would give Golovkin problems. Canelo looked like he was around 170-173 lbs. for the Kirkland fight.

Canelo’s current weight looks like he’s lost his mind, and just gone over the deep end with his bulking up. Canelo would have been fine if he had gained maybe 1 or 2 lbs. for the Golovkin fight, but no more than that. Most of all, Canelo needs speed and endurance to beat Golovkin. He’s not going to beat him with size. What it looks like to me though is Canelo is taking the Danny Jacobs approach to trying to beat Golovkin. Jacobs bulked up to 180 lbs. and used his size advantage to give Golovkin headaches. But, Jacobs was 6-feet, and very fast mover around the ring.

Canelo is no more than 5’9”, and it’s too much weight for him to be weighing over 180. If Jacobs had bulked up in the same way Canelo has, he’d be over 200 lbs. for his 6’0” frame proportionally. Canelo’s muscles will have no benefit to him in this fight; believe me. I think Canelo’s muscles are going to hurt him badly, and cause him to fatigue early and get stopped. It’s really bad news for Canelo and his promoters at Golden Boy Promotion.

The only positive I can see about Canelo transforming his body into a body builder physique is he now has a good excuse to give to the boxing fans for his defeat on Saturday. Canelo can blame it on all the muscle weight he’s put on. You can argue that some fighters intentionally don’t train hard for important fights so they can have an excuse to give to the boxing and to themselves to explain why they lost. Canelo’s body transformation will help him with his own excuses for explaining away his loss afterwards.

Canelo looks a lot like heavyweight Anthony Joshua as far as all the muscles that he packed on for his April 29 fight against Wladimir Klitschko. Jacobs really bulked up for the fight against Klitschko, and it hurt his performance. He still won the fight, but he shouldn’t have. Joshua could barely move with all the muscles he’d added for the fight. Canelo seems to think his muscles are going to scare Golovkin, but this is not going to be a body building contest on September 16.

This is a fight that Canelo will need to be active, and he’ll need to be able to fight hard for 3 minutes of each round for him to beat Golovkin. With the way Canelo looks right now, I think he might seize up like an old car going up a steep mountain road. Canelo is going to get tired quickly in the fight if Golovkin forces a fast pace on him. If I’m Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez, I would be telling him to go all out to push as fast a pace as possible for the first 6 rounds of the fight to wear Canelo out.

If Canelo is still around by the end of the 6th, he’ll be fighting on fumes with nothing left. I don’t think Canelo will be able to fight in the center of the ring after round the first part of the fight. He’s going to be up against the ropes, resting like he was in the Austin Trout and Liam Smith fight. Canelo finished both fights against the ropes. His stamina was horrible in both fights. I can only imagine what Canelo’s stamina will be like on September 16 with all the muscle weight he’s put on.

Canelo has to try and get to Golovkin early in this fight. With all the bulk that Canelo, 27, has put on, he only has one choice to try and win, and that’s to go after Golovkin right away and run for an early knockout. When you have fighters with as much muscle as Canelo has now, they’re only dangerous in the first 5 or 6 rounds. After that, they lose it completely and get battered to pieces.

I hope both fighters test clean for this fight. Golovkin still looks flabby, so no one is ever going to think he’s using anything. Golovkin looks well rested for the fight. I think he’s backed off from the hard training that he did to prepare for his last 2 fights against Kell Brook and Danny Jacobs. Sanchez says he’s doing the same training as before, but I don’t believe that. Golovkin looks too fresh for him to be training like he was before. Golovkin looked like he’d been overworked for the last training camps. It’s good that he’s not so worn down looking for this fight, but I think he started training camp with more fat on him than he’s had before other fights.

Canelo’s crazy body transformation has got me wondering whether he and his trainers have their heads screwed on straight. Of any fighter I’ve ever seen in boxing, I’ve never seen them change this much in just one training camp. Cruiserweight Mike Perez has lost a ton of weight to go from 240 to 200 lbs. for him to fight in the World Boxing Super Series, but he didn’t take all that weight off in one training camp. It took him a while to drop the weight. Canelo has made his body transformation in just 1 camp. I hope there’s no cheating going on in the building up of Canelo’s physique. That would be another black eye for boxing if one of the sport’s biggest stars was popped on a drug test.

If Canelo was able to put on weight so quickly for the Golovkin fight, then why didn’t he do this 2-3 years ago, when Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya was saying he was too small for the middleweight division. Why did Canelo need a catch=weight of 155 lbs. for his fights? I think Canelo has always been a legitimate middleweight, who rehydrates to light heavyweight. Right now though, Canelo looks like he would have to drain weight to fight in the 175 lb. division if he wanted to fight at light heavyweight. Canelo could obviously lose the 10-15 lbs. to get down to 175 lbs. to fight at light heavyweight, but he’s fighting at middleweight at 160 for the Golovkin fight. With Canelo this big, he should be fighting at super middleweight or light heavyweight. At the very least, Canelo should be fighting in the 168 lb. division right now.