Chris Algieri doesn’t think Jermell Charlo helped Canelo Alvarez at all prepare for the lineup of top guys that are waiting for him at super middleweight.
Algieri feels that the lack of resistance that Jermell (35-2-1,19 KOs) made him basically useless to prepare for the top guys that await him at 168, like David Benavidez, Demetrius Andrade, David Morrell Jr., and Caleb Plant.
Fighting Jermall Charlo or Terence Crawford next won’t do much to get Canelo (60-2-2, 39 KOs) ready for any of those fighters or a rematch with WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol if he chooses to fight him again.
The last three opponents for Canelo have been tune-up level fights to help him regain his confidence after his loss to Bivol last year. If Canelo elects to fight Jermall or Crawford next, it would show that his self-esteem still isn’t fully back yet.
Is Canelo back?
“Yeah, Canelo looked good, but he had a guy that wasn’t offering any kind of resistance. So, is Canelo back? I don’t know. I can’t say that against a guy who puts up very little resistance the way that Charlo did,” said Chris Algieri to ProBox TV about whether Canelo Alvarez is back to where he was before after his win over Jermell Charlo last Saturday.
Canelo didn’t look much different against Jermell than he did in his three previous fights against John Ryder, 41-year-old Gennadiy Golovkin & Dmitry Bivol.
Jermell wasn’t as good as those guys, so Canelo looked a little better because he wasn’t getting any resistance due to the timid nature of Charlo.
“I think Canelo, at his best from a couple of years ago, gets Charlo out of there, even if the guy is not engaging, which is it’s hard to stop a guy who’s not engaging, but you got two weight classes on the guy,” said Algieri.
“If you’re not worried about what’s coming back at you, just go for broke and get him out of there. Go to work and start digging the body on both sides, something you see in older fighters.
“You don’t see that sustained attack, that sustained aggression, and that’s why a lot of times guys don’t have as many knockouts later in their career as they did early on in these smaller weights. Heavyweight is different.
“The power is different up there, one-punch power, but Canelo was never a one-punch guy. He broke you down, he beat you up, he got to your body consistently on both sides,” said Chris.
Canelo wasn’t mixing things up
“Now, he’s got his moves that he does, and he basically just cycled through them all night long with Charlo. He wasn’t really mixing things up that well to get him out of there because I think if he really went for it, I think Canelo from a couple of years ago would have gotten Charlo out of there.”
Is it too late for Canelo to improve?
Like in all of Canelo’s recent fights, he wasn’t mixing up his offense and just loading up on knockout blows.
“I think he would have gone broke, and he would not have worried about what was coming back at him because there wasn’t much coming back anyway, and he could have put on a sustained attack and broke him down,” said Algieri.
“Really, Charlo, even from the knockdown, he chose to go down. If you had given him enough reason to get out of that fight, he would have.
“I think a Canelo from a couple of years ago, or maybe even a prime Canelo would have put that sustained action that was
necessary in order to get a guy like that out of there. But listen. he still looked good.
“He looked good against a guy that wasn’t fighting back. I want to see with some resistance, though. I think the lineup for the guys that Canelo is going to be fighting moving forward, this fight didn’t help him get ready for any of those.
“He’s going to have guys that are going to fight him back. So I’m curious to see what Canelo can do moving forward,” said Algieri.
