Chavez Jr: I can knockout Canelo Alvarez

Boxingnews24.com

By Dan Ambrose: Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (50-2-1, 32 KOs) believes he has the size, talent and punching power to knockout Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (48-1-1, 32 KOs) this Saturday night when the two of them meet on HBO PPV. The 31-year-old Chavez Jr. sees this fight as possibly the last chance to turn his career around. It’s not only an important fight for Chavez Jr., but it’s also an extremely important one for the 26-year-old Canelo, who hasn’t fought a good fighter in his prime since his controversial win over Erislandy Lara in 2014.

That was 3 years ago. Golden Boy Promotions stopped matching Canelo against good fighters in their prime after that questionable win. Canelo needs to prove that he can beat a good B-level fighter like Chavez Jr. before taking a step up against Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in September. If Canelo can’t pass the Chavez Jr. test, then he can forget all about a fight against GGG in September, because that fight won’t happen.

Chavez Jr. needs to have more to his game this Saturday night than him just standing in the center of the ring for 12 rounds and trading bombs with Canelo. I don’t think that’s a plan that will necessarily work for the 31-year-old Chavez Jr. There hasn’t been anyone yet that has proven that they can out-slug Canelo

“I do think I can knock him out,” Chavez Jr said via Fight News. “I am a big fighter; I have fought in the light heavyweight division, a division where one punch can change the outcome of the fight. I think if I land the right punch, I can knock him out.”

I think Chavez Jr. has a reasonable chance of knocking Canelo out if he does the following things:

– Pressures him nonstop for 3 minutes of each round. It has to be constant pressure with no letup with punches constantly flying. The name of the game to beating Canelo is hitting him over and over again with shots, and not letting him rest. Liam Smith was getting to Canelo briefly in their fight on September 17 last year, but then he tired out and couldn’t keep up the pace. Canelo then was able to take over the fight and knock Smith out. However, Smith had the right idea going into the fight. He just didn’t have the engine to carry it out. Chavez Jr. will need an Aaron Pryor-like work rate for him to beat Canelo. Pryor was known for throwing nonstop punches for 12 rounds to wear down his opponents. Pryor never stopped throwing punches when he was in his prime.

– Average 80 punches thrown per round. Make sure Canelo is always getting hit because he has horrible stamina and will not be able to match Chavez Jr’s work rate. He’s not capable of putting his punches together without needing frequent timeouts to rest on the ropes. This is as good as it gets for Canelo at 26. As he ages, his stamina will get work, forcing Golden Boy to be more and more selective in their match-making for him. This likely means won’t be seeing Canelo fighting a lot of top guys in the future.

– Focus most shots to the body of Canelo rather than his head. Canelo has proven to be a bulldog inside the ring during his career, and his head is like a brick wall. You can hit Canelo solid with head shots for 12 rounds, and he’s going to keep coming forward. Canelo also makes it hard to hit him with power shots to the head because he uses head movement, and he likes to counter. Where Canelo can be hurt is to the body. He’s been hurt with body punches in the past. It doesn’t matter how much punch resistance Canelo has in taking head shots. It’s a different story when he gets hit to the body. He’s no different from anybody else when it comes to getting hit hard with body shots. If Chavez Jr. hits Canelo enough to the body, he’ll knock him out.

– If possible, jab Canelo from the outside to limit his ability to connect with his left hook. It’s his best weapon by far in his arsenal of punches. Canelo’s right hand and jabs are nothing special.

“It is at a great time in my career. I think this is my last opportunity and I am going to take advantage of it,” said Chavez Jr. “I knew it was going to be difficult but I am almost at weight. I had to change my diet and work hard to make the weight. I know I will be ready to not only make the weight but to win on Saturday night. I have always thought I could make 160 again,” said Chavez Jr.

I don’t think this is the last opportunity in Chavez Jr’s career. He’s too popular for this to be the last chance. As long as he puts in a good effort on Saturday, he’ll get more chances against top guys like Gennady Golovkin, Daniel Jacobs, James DeGale, Gilberto Ramirez, George Groves, Tyron Zeuge, and possibly some light heavyweights like Sergey Kovalev, Adonis Stevenson and Andre Ward. Chavez Jr. needs to make sure that he gives it all on Saturday night so that the boxing fans that purchase the Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight on HBO pay-per-view get their money’s worth.

That means putting in some effort to make the fight exciting. Chavez Jr. cannot fight like he did against Andrzej Fonfara in quitting on his stool after the 9th round. The boxing fans need to see more effort from Chavez Jr. than we saw from Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao in their fight in 2015. That was a terrible fight for both of those guys. However, if Chavez Jr. gets blasted out by Canelo in short order, then it could hurt his career in a big way. Chavez Jr. would need to come back from that loss by building himself up slowly fight by fight.

Chavez Jr. does need to think about going back down to 160, because he has more of an advantage in that weight class than he does at 168. There are also more opportunities for big fights for Chavez Jr. at 160 than there is at 168. That’s not a great division right now given the lack of big names. Chavez Jr. doesn’t quite have enough power to take on the big brutes at 165 like Sergey Kovalev, Oleksandr Gvozdyk and Artur Beterbiev. Chavez Jr. is better off sticking with his trainer Nacho Beristain and strength and conditioning coach Memo Heredia and going back down to 160. Chavez Jr. says he can still make weight for the 160lb division when he trains hard.

“He is a good fighter but for this weight he is small,” Chavez Jr said about the 5’9” Canelo. “He has fought good fighters but I don’t think in their prime.”

Canelo hasn’t fought that many good fighters. When he has fought some well-known guys, they were generally older and MUCH smaller than him. Here are the best fighters Canelo has fought during his career:

– Floyd Mayweather Jr.

– Shane Mosley – Canelo fought Mosley when he was 40-years-old. Mosley is a former lightweight, and he was much smaller than Canelo.

– Miguel Cotto – He was much smaller and older than Canelo. Cotto was 36 when he fought Canelo.

– Kermit Cintron – Canelo fought Cintron when he was past his prime.

– Carlos Baldomir – Old by the time Canelo fought him.

– Lovemore N’dou – Old by the time Canelo fought him

– Ryan Rhodes – Old by the time Canelo fought him

– Austin Trout – Gave Canelo all kinds of problems. Their fight was essentially a draw. The only thing that separated them was a knockdown that Canelo scored in round. The scoring for the fight was absolutely horrible.

– Erislandy Lara – Appeared to beat Canelo but was arguably robbed.

– Alfredo Angulo – Over the hill by the time Canelo fought him.

– James Kirkland – Over the hill by the time Canelo fought him. Kirkland was no longer fighting on a frequent basis when he was selected by Golden Boy Promotions to fight Canelo.

– Amir Khan – a former light welterweight that was pulled up 2 divisions to fight Canelo at middleweight in 2016. This was a mismatch.

– Liam Smith – Arguably a paper champion at 154 that Oscar De La Hoya tried to say was the best fighter at junior middleweight when Canelo fought him in 2016. Smith was definitely not the best fighter at 154. You can argue that Smith wasn’t even the 5th best fighter at 154. He was more like a belt holder. The quality fighters at 154 were these guys: Erislandy Lara, Jermell Charlo, Jermall Charlo, Demetrius Andrade, Erickson Lubin, Julian “J-Rock” Williams, Austin Trout, Jack Culcay and Jarrett Hurd. In other words, the guys that Canelo wasn’t fighting. He did fight Trout and Lara, but those were controversial decisions.

“This is the biggest fight of my career because of what it means and also the numbers it is producing,” said Chavez Jr.

I would agree with Chavez Jr. about this being the biggest fight of his career. His previous biggest was against Sergio Martinez, who didn’t have a big built in fan base of boxing fans in the U.S to make the Chavez Jr. fight a huge one. Chavez Jr. was the one that pulled in their fans when the two of them fought each other in 2012.