Why Saul “Canelo” Alvarez Should Fire His Team | Should Canelo Fight GGG?

I’m late to the party but I need to enlighten many people out there about the situation the Middleweight division of boxing is in. I’ll focus on why the two main pillars of middleweight boxing, Canelo Alverez and Gennady Gennadyevich Golovkin (his parents are really creative when it comes to names), haven’t fought yet. On Saturday night, Canelo deleted the already questionable chin of Amir Khan with a devastating cross counter. However, it came as no surprise to anyone remotely interested in the world of boxing that this fight would have one of two outcomes: Khan pulling away a decision or Khan getting his head punched off.

He’s already been knocked out twice before by lightweights with reasonable power; a huge misconception made by most is that Khan has a glass chin. It’s not that his chin isn’t the strongest, it’s that his chin defense sucks goat dick. All three of his KO losses came by way of counters. The first two came by a counter left hook, he gets way too confident in his combination speed and lowers his guard and eventually gets countered. If you noticed the first few rounds of Canelo vs Khan, what punch did you see Canelo blindly throwing again and again? That’s right, the left fucking hook. Luckily after four rounds (?) he used the small amount of boxing IQ he had and began landing right straights to the body. Khan got tired, threw a lazy jab and got murdered.

KO #1

KO #2

Now then let’s get to the meat of the problem I have with Canelo and his team. For one, this fight should not have happened. He keeps putting on this front that he is brave, confident, ready to fight anyone at any weight, and somehow he’s managed to avoid fighting his WBC mandatory challenger “GGG”. It was chiseled in stone tablets that the winner of Cotto vs Alvarez would fight GGG afterward. It was a no-brainer since GGG wants to unify the middleweight belts and has trouble finding opponents because everyone’s running scared. Yet the fearless Alvarez manages to convince King Khan to take one for the welterweight team to buy more time. People seem to buy the guise that this was a tune up fight for Alvarez in anticipation for his match with GGG, but that’s clearly not the case.

Yes, both Khan and GGG are able to box, have ring generalship, footwork, utilize the jab, you know, the works. So it follows that if Canelo could perform well against a boxer like Khan, he may have a chance against GGG. The thing is, Khan has pillow hands compared to GGG and furthermore he’s not the pressure fighter that GGG is. This fight could only serve as a way to make money and further pad Canelo’s resume. His fans are paying out the ass to see him fight blown up welterweights i.e. Cotto, Khan or inactive fighters i.e. Kirkland, Angulo, and feverishly stroke themselves to the names he has taken out saying, “He’s fought this, he’s fought that, why would he be scared!? Who’s GGG fought!?” It is no wonder his fans were prepared to shovel out cash for another meme fight everyone knew would end in a KO, but I guess it just feeds into our primal desire to see someone publicly executed. I think Khan deserved it. There’s a fine line between bravery and stupidity and this was just plain stupid. Fans would be satisfied with this match if it came up some other time (I don’t give a shit), but the fact of the matter is we need to see an actual middleweight bout from Canelo. He has the belt but he hasn’t fought anyone I’d consider an actual middleweight yet, so I understand his team’s apprehension at fighting a proven middleweight champion like GGG.

I’m sure at this point many of you are baffled as to how the title of this article relates to what you’ve read so far. Here’s the deal: despite Canelo’s accuracy and power, why in the holy mother of fuck are we still waiting for a fight with GGG? Here’s why, because he is scared. Scared because his promoter and his team are scared. He tried to “call out” GGG after his “impressive” victory over a blown up welterweight with no chin defense. Shortly after this laughable display, he defers the decision to his team. Why would he leave it up to his team if he’s so eager? His team didn’t want him to fight Erislandy Lara but he somehow made that happen so what’s the problem this time? He is simply outclassed by GGG. His corner is over-reliant on Canelo’s power, thus neglecting to make him an actual boxer.

Before I continue, I know someone out there will claim that it was simply a business decision. Boxers, like businesses, need keen risk management to increase their potential earnings and this risk is way too big because they know their odds are slim against GGG. Boxing fans are getting sick of waiting for fights ever since the Mayweather-Pacquiao five-year debacle, not to mention the fact that this fight between GGG and Canelo was pretty much guaranteed after his win over Cotto. There was no reason this circus of a match between Canelo and Khan should have happened. It’s merely postponing a real middleweight fight for Canelo and it only further displayed his incompetency as a boxer. GGG isn’t scared of Canelo at all because he’s looking at his potential opponent, not who he’s knocked out. If any of you took the time to look at Canelo you would see he lacks the tools to match up with GGG.

Let’s focus on GGG for a moment. He’s an Olympic silver medalist with over 200 amateur bouts and 3 gold medals from World and Asian championships. He has the highest knockout percentage in middleweight championship history and shows he has knockout power and precision in both hands, not just in headhunting but to the body as well. If that’s not a great boxing resume then I don’t know what is. But again, the resume is not what determines the odds, it’s what you actually see in the ring. He has fantastic footwork, accuracy, his utilization of his powerful jab is superb, he’s a great counter puncher and knows how to cut off and use the ring to his advantage. To top it all off, he has a solid, proven chin against other middleweights, something Canelo has not shown as of yet.

The likelihood of GGG losing by decision or KO is close to zero looking at his deep well of boxing experience. As for Canelo’s boxing, we only need to look as far as his last fight. He’s pretty much been the same fighter for the past few years with a slow but powerful jab that he barely uses with conviction. Canelo tends to square up and throw large hook/straights when he’s clearly out of range which results in him lunging a lot and getting countered. He’s so used to fighting smaller fighters that he tends to turtle up when under pressure in the early rounds with the occasional wild counter or potshot. Having a setback this large against someone that capitalizes on opportunities to counter and work on the body is not a good sign for Canelo.

Another one of Canelo’s huge flaws is his deficient lateral movement and his horrible technique on the backfoot. He tends to swing wildly rather than use proper footwork to get out of a dangerous situation. Against GGG, someone who knows how to apply pressure and utilize angles, his odds of escaping a bind seem to get smaller and smaller the more you analyze the two fighters. Is it really any wonder his team is hesitant to sign off on this fight? I know someone will mention the offer to fight at catch weight, but look here fucker, what belt does GGG want? The light middleweight belt? NO fucker, he wants WBC middleweight and Canelo, the holder of said belt, should defend the belt like Cotto did, at the proper weight. Golovkin agreed to fight Mayweather as a light middleweight but this fight is completely different. He wants the middleweight belt and as such, Canelo should defend it. It’s really that simple.

Canelo should fire his team because they all share the fear that he isn’t ready, which is the root of this delay. They didn’t prepare him like they should have. A true middleweight boxer should not be flailing with a blown up welterweight for 4 rounds. It’s embarrassing to see one of the most popular boxers have such clear setbacks in his game. Some of his fans are even enabling his behavior by claiming, “GGG should fight Andre Ward first, he’s the one running scared of Ward and he refuses to fight Canelo at catchweight.” They continue to imply Canelo can do whatever he wants because he brings the money, therefore he should be able to defend the middleweight belt by fighting a different GGG in a different weight class. Not only would this grant Canelo some iota of an advantage in their eyes, it circumvents Golovkin’s desire for Canelo’s belt. GGG has been systemically removing all middleweights so that he can assert himself as an undisputed juggernaut and Canelo has the belt he needs. Andre Ward is fighting in a different weight class now so why is it GGG’s responsibility to target someone who can’t wager the belt? He may decide to face Ward after going up a few weight classes but he needs to clean up the middleweight division first. It’s up to Ward to issue the challenge since he’s the one that left the division, not GGG.

The reality is that Canelo is woefully unprepared and he will take as many opponents he can to fill his pockets before he gets obliterated by GGG. The payout will be huge if he manages to defeat GGG and I believe Canelo has the potential to be a challenge if his coaches took the time to fully develop him not just as a puncher, but a full-fledged boxer. His lack of skills were exposed by Mayweather yet his improvement is as slow and clumsy as his footwork. Canelo, get rid of your coaches and learn some boxing. Unfortunately you’ll have to do that after you suffer your first knockout from Golovkin. You took the risk and now it’s time to give us what you owe us, a true middleweight bloodbath.