Floyd Mayweather Jr. shows support for Canelo Alvarez as he heads into his trilogy fight with Gennadiy Golovkin on September 17th in Las Vegas.
It’s not surprising that Mayweather is going to bat for Canelo because his continued success in boxing makes him look better because of his victory over the star in September 2013.
The reality is that Canelo has arguably been keeping his status as an elite fighter artificially high by swerving the talented opposition over the last five years.
Canelo (57-2-2, 39 KOs) is coming off a rare one-sided loss to Dmitry Bivol on May 7th, and he looked old & tired, much older than his chronological age of 31.
Mayweather believes Canelo will return to show his “Hall of Fame” greatness again on September 17th against GGG. However, that may not happen.
The Mexican star has lost speed, and he’s been able to hide his deterioration by fighting British fighters rather than the talented sharks like David Benavidez, Jermall Charlo, Demetrius Andrade & David Morrell Jr.
“One thing about Canelo, he’s going to step up to the plate and do what he got to do. He’s going to fight. I can’t knock the motherf**** because he’s going down in the Hall of Fame,” said Mayweather to Fighthype.
Mayweather takes Canelo’s side in Ryan Garcia beef
“You see Ryan Garcia; first, he’s praising Canelo, you want to learn from Canelo, and you’re in Canelo’s training camp. Now it’s all hate,” Mayweather Jr. said.
“‘I don’t like him, I don’t like him.’ Accomplish what Canelo has accomplished, then speak bad about him, but you don’t need to speak badly about him no way.”
No matter what Mayweather says in support of Canelo, it’s not going to change the fact that he was humiliated by Dmitry Bivol last May, and he’s going to keep losing if he faces him or David Benavidez.
The 40-year-old Golovkin may beat Canelo in their trilogy match on September 17th because he’s got the perfect blueprint to follow from Bivol.
What Bivol showed is Canelo can’t handle a fighter that throws combinations of three to seven punches and doesn’t let him rest. Most boxing experts saw this weakness in Canelo’s game years ago before Golovkin fought him, but he failed to take advantage of this flaw.
Bivol and his trainer spotted Canelo’s flaw and took advantage of it by throwing lots of combinations and forcing the Mexican star to fight at a pace he couldn’t handle.
Golovkin’s trainer wants it to be a short-range fight
“The goal is to be in tip-top shape, and I’m not going to say turn it into a slugfest right away. I would like for him to start off boxing, putting pressure on him and trying to shorten up the distance,” said trainer Johnathon Banks to Behind The Gloves about what he wants Golovkin to do against Canelo on September 17th.
“I don’t want it to be a distant fight; I want it to be a close-range fight. That’s what I would like for it to be. If you look at all of Canelo’s decisions, no matter how close or how far it was, he always got the benefit of the doubt and got the decision.
“The [Dmitry] Bivol fight was the first fight in a long time where he didn’t get the decision. So now that’s going to cause him to approach GGG differently.
“GGG was already going to approach him differently, but he’s going to approach GGG differently. I think Canelo is coming in for a knockout because he can’t depend on the judges for a close decision no more. I think he learned that in this last fight.
“So both fighters are coming in different. Both fighters are saying, ‘I can’t depend on the judges.’ So that is going to make for a really good fight,” said Banks.
