GGG’s trainer: Canelo is just a slapper

Boxingnews24.com

By Dan Ambrose: As far as Gennady “GGG” Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez is concerned, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (49-1-1, 34 KOs) is just a little slapper fighter, who lacks punching power and size for the middleweight division. Sanchez says Canelo will need to do more than slap at Golovkin to keep him off of him when the two of them fight on September 16 on HBO pay-per-view at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Sanchez doesn’t believe that the 5’8” Canelo has the size or the power to keep GGG from beating him down and getting a victory. Sanchez sees Canelo as a Sugar Ray Leonard type of fighter facing the bigger and stronger Marvin Hagler. But in this example, the Hagler-like Golovkin will wear Canelo down as the fight progresses. Leonard beat Hagler, albeit by a very controversial decision. Many boxing fans that saw that fight felt that Hagler was robbed by the judges. This writer saw the fight and had Hagler winning a clear decision over Leonard.

“He’s a slapper. He’s a slapper who throws very good, fast combinations, said Sanchez to Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports. “He’s going to have to do more than slap to keep Golovkin off of him. Canelo is not [a big puncher]. He’s about to find out what a puncher is all about.”

Sanchez is dead on correct about Canelo not being a big puncher. It was obvious years ago that Canelo was never a big puncher. He was just a combination puncher. Even when Canelo was an overisized welterweight, he couldn’t knockout guy like Matthew Hatton, Lanardo Tyner and Miguel Vazquez. Canelo never had the punching power to knockout guy. It was all about Canelo getting them out with combinations. He would do that against guys that stood in front of him and who couldn’t punch back with any kind of power to keep him honest.

When Canelo has faced guys that couldn’t punch, he was able to stay in the pocket and bang them out. Canelo couldn’t knockout Austin Trout despite hurt him in the 7th due to Trout coming back and hurt him back with a body shots. Canelo went the last 5 rounds of the fight with his back glued to the ropes, unwilling to come to the center of the ring for fear of getting hit with another big body shot from Trout.

Out of Canelo’s last 8 opponents, he’s knocked out only half of them. Those knockouts came against flawed fighters that had no chance against Canelo in welterweight Amir Khan, James Kirkland, Angulo Angulo and Liam Smith. Kirkland had been out of the ring for 2 years before fighting Canelo, and he’d gained a lot of weight that he had to take off during training camp. Angulo had been out of the ring for 9 months previous to fight Canelo, and he had gained a lot of weight that he had to strip off during training camp.

Liam Smith was little more than a paper champion, who was not considered to be in the same league as the top caliber fighters at 154. Canelo vacated his WBC middleweight title and moved back down to 154 to fight Liam Smith for his WBO title rather than staying and fighting Golovkin. Boxing fans wondered why Canelo chose Liam Smith rather than Erislandy Lara or Jermall Charlo, both of which would have jumped at the chance to fight Canelo.

“Amir Khan was a lightweight and he got knocked out by [Breidis] Prescott,” Sanchez said. “And you’re going to make it look like a huge deal that he hurt Kirkland? Kirkland hadn’t fought for two years. Who has [Alvarez] knocked out that you could say, ‘Yeah, that was a great KO of a guy who is tough to KO?’”

Sanchez really doesn’t need to explain himself in pointing out that Canelo isn’t a big puncher. Anyone that knows boxing can see for themselves that Canelo doesn’t have power for the 160lb division, and he also wasn’t a huge puncher for the 154lb division. When I think of huge punchers for the 154lb division, I think of Jermall Charlo, Demetrius Andrade, Erickson Lubin and Jermell Charlo. Those are big punchers in the current junior middleweight division. For boxing historians, they might remember a fighter named Julian Jackson. Now that was a big puncher for the 154lb division. Jackson had one-punch power. Canelo is nothing like Jackson or the Charlo brothers when it comes to his power. Canelo showed in his last fight against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. that his power is not going to be a factor for him now that he’s fighting at 160. Canelo will need to learn to use his feet more or else he’s going to have short stay at 160. I suspect Canelo will move back down to 154 once he starts taking losses at middleweight.

Now that Canelo is fighting at middleweight, he really doesn’t have the power to be a big slugger in this weight class. Canelo is going to need to find a different way of winning now that he’s at middleweight, because he’s not going to be able to throw enough combinations to knockout the better fighters in the 160lb division.

Here are the biggest punchers in the middleweight division:

– Gennady Golovkin

– David Lemieux

– Jermall Charlo

– Danny Jacobs

– Ryota Murata

– Matvey Karobov

– Luis Arias

– Sergey Derevyanchenko

– Tureano Johnson

– Curtis Stevens

– Jorge Sebastian Heiland

I wouldn’t begin to say that all those guys could beat Canelo, but I think Golovkin, Charlo and Jacobs will definitely beat him. I would give Lemieux, Murata, Arias, Johnson and Derevyanchenko a fair shot at defeating. Curtis Stevens would have a slight chance if he caught Canelo with a big shot in the first two or three rounds. Stevens has a lot of mileage on him, and he’s not the fighter he was two years ago.

Canelo is going to have a lot of problems with GGG, considering that he doesn’t have the mobility, weight or the power to do what Danny Jacobs was doing when he fought him earlier this year. Jacobs was using a lot of movement in addition to his fast hands to keep Golovkin from getting his shots off. I don’t think Golovkin was trying his hardest to knock Jacobs out.

You could see that Golovkin had a different mindset for the Jacobs fight compared to the mindset he had in his previous fights. Golovkin kept his offense in 1st gear for pretty much the entire fight. You could see Golovkin shift his offense from 1st to 2nd gear in the 4th round when he knocked Jacobs down. But then instead of trying to finish Jacobs off, Golovkin shifted back into 1st gear and let him off the hook.

In hindsight, it was a tactical mistake on Triple G’s part in letting Jacobs survive the round. What we don’t know is whether Golovkin intentionally let Jacobs hang around so that he wouldn’t look impressive in that fight. The reason for that is because if Golovkin had looked sensational against Jacobs, he might not have gotten the Canelo fight. That’s a belief that a lot of boxing fans have.

“This is a middleweight fighting a smaller guy with fast hands,” Sanchez said. “I think once Golovkin gets distance, once Golovkin gets timing, I think Golovkin will wear him down.”

There’s a good possibility that Golovkin will wear Canelo down a lot faster than people think. Sanchez believes that Golovkin will get to Canelo in the second half of the fight and knock him out by the 9th. I see it as a massacre where Golovkin overwhelms Canelo with superior firepower from the very 1st round, forcing him to take tremendous shots and fight tooth and nail at a faster pace than his physique can handle.

Once Canelo gets red in the face and tired, he’ll do what he ALWAYS does and that’s retreat to the ropes to rest and try use his Mayweather shoulder roll. Canelo will try and get Golovkin to fight his fight by getting him to box him when he goes to the ropes instead of slugging with him. Canelo will obviously not want Golovkin to slug when he’s trying to take a breather against the ropes.

If Golovkin has studied Canelo’s past fights well, he’ll go for the coup de grace and look to finish him off just like he did with Kell Brook in round 5 when he got him against the ropes. Brook tried to fight it out against the ropes until he was hurt by a shot.

Golovkin can finish Canelo not unloading on him with everything he has. Canelo will obviously be looking to throw his left hand counters, because that’s his main weapon, but he doesn’t have any power with the left. Canelo is still fighting with welterweight power. He’s like Mayweather.

We saw how Mayweather moved up from super featherweight after starting his career out in that weight class, but he didn’t carry his power up with him when he moved up to welterweight. Mayweather got by with speed a lone after moving up to 147. His power was never formidable like normal welterweights after he moved up. Canelo is still a 147 pounder when it comes to his power. He just has speed, and that’s what’s gotten him by up until now. It’s just speed.

Canelo’s promoters at Golden Boy Promotions have helped him a lot by matching him against beatable opposition in each division he’s fought in. For example, instead of Canelo fighting the dangerous junior middleweights like the Charlos, Lubin, and Andrade, he was matched against Liam Smith, Kirkland and Angulo. Yeah, Canelo fought Trout and Lara, but those weren’t big punchers, and he arguably deserved to lose both fights. At middleweight, Canelo fought Miguel Cotto instead of Golovkin. It was perfect match-making by Golden Boy for Canelo. They didn’t match him tough, and it’s obviously saved him from taking a lot of losses.