Chris Eubank Jr has studied Canelo Alvarez for long enough to have come up with what he feels is the blueprint in how to beat the Mexican star.
Eubank Jr’s fellow countrymen Billy Joe Saunders, Callum Smith, and Rocky Fielding have done the wrong thing when fighting Alvarez (56-1-2, 38 KOs) by not fighting aggressively, and backing away.
According to former IBO super middleweight champion Eubank Jr (30-2, 22 KOs), you’re not going to beat the superstar Canelo by running away from him and showing fear.
You’re also not going to beat Canelo by a decision, so you might as well put that idea out of your head entirely because the odds are you’re not going to get the ‘W’ against the superstar by the judges.
What’s interesting is how few fighters have learned from watching Canelo’s fights against Gennady Golovkin, Floyd Mayweather Jr, Austin Trout, and Erislandy Lara.
Trout showed how to beat Canelo years ago by taking the fight to him in their clash in April 2013 in San Antonio, Texas. Although Trout wasn’t given the decision, he showed how vulnerable Canelo was by pressuring him outworking.
To this day, some boxing fans believe this was the start of a handful of fighters that were robbed of a decision against Canelo.
You can’t beat Canelo by points
“The only way to beat him – you’re not going to beat him on points because he’s a powerhouse,” said Eubank Jr to TalkSPORT about Canelo.
“I don’t know why you would try and go to points anyway because it’s going to be hard to get a decision,”
“You want to actually take it to him, you want to hurt him, you want to get his respect so that he stops trying to load up on you,” said Eubank Jr.
The fact that fighters have failed to learn from Canelo’s earlier fights against Floyd Mayweather Jr, Trout, and Lara, suggests that their training teams let them down.
Even Gennadiy Golovkin let himself down by backing up and trying to box Canelo from the outside in both of his two fights. Golovkin fought like he didn’t realize that he had more power than the Mexican star.
Golovkin’s trainer Johnathon Banks feels that he would have beaten Canelo if he’d gone forward and attacked him rather than choosing to box.
‘These guys are dancing around the ring just trying to get away from him for 12 rounds, I don’t understand it,” said Eubank Jr about Canelo’s opponents.
Nonstop pressure is the way to beat Canelo
“My game plan would be to take the fight to him, to just be as much of an animal as he is to them and be the same to him. See how he holds up, he’s just used to guys running away.”
The Eubank Jr that destroyed Avni Yildirim in three rounds in 2017 would be a huge problem for Canelo.
Unfortunately, Eubank Jr has only fought five times since the win over Yildirim and doesn’t look like the same guy he once was in his last fight against Marcus Morrison on May 1st.
Nonetheless, Eubank Jr does know what he’s talking about when he discusses his strategy in how to beat Canelo.
It’s too bad Eubank Jr isn’t a trainer for some of the top super middleweights because he could impart his knowledge to them to help them defeat Canelo if they’re lucky enough to get a chance to fight him.