“All the belts!”, a quote Gennady Golovkin has made famous in the boxing world has turned into a goal of Canelo’s and he has run roughshod in achieving that ever since his second battle with Golovkin way back in 2018.
Since that epic battle in September of 2018 with the former middleweight kingpin in Golovkin (winning the WBA (super), WBC, and The Ring middleweight titles), Canelo has fought five more times with three of them coming by way of stoppage. Beating the likes of Daniel Jacobs, Rocky Fielding, Sergey Kovalev, Callum Smith, and most recently Avni Yildirim. All while adding the WBA super middleweight, IBF middleweight, WBO light heavyweight, and WBA (super), The Ring, and WBC super middleweight titles to his already incredible career.
Easy enough to say ‘Canelo’ has entered the peak of his career and he will not be slowing down anytime soon. At just 30 years of age Alvarez enters a packed house at the AT&T Stadium Saturday night against Billy Joe Saunders – an undefeated fighter out of the UK looking to successfully defend his WBO super middleweight title. The defending world champion will have his work cut out for him as Alvarez is as high as a (-900) favorite at some books.The underdog Saunders has added some good names under his thirty-fight boxing resume including the likes of David Lemieux, Willie Monroe Jr., Chris Eubank Jr., and most recently against Martin Murray last December.
As for fight predictions I think this will be a very tough matchup for Saunders. He is fighting the absolute best fighter in boxing right now and while Saunders is no slouch himself and should have some success early on, I think he will slow down and Canelo will catch fire the later the fight progresses. Saunders’ best path to victory is to immediately put pressure on the Mexican star and not give him much room to breathe; Golovkin set the blueprint on how to beat Canelo with that kind of game plan. Jabs, body work, aggression, and cutting off the ring will be the keys to victory for the British boxer. He could have that success early on while the fight is still being felt out between both fighters but, I think Canelo will start to turn it on around rounds four and five and continue upping the intensity and aggression the more he figures out Saunders’ style and patterns of striking. Canelo is one of the smartest fighters in the world of the sweet science and should not have much of a problem figuring out his foe’s timing and speed this Saturday night. I’m not worried about Canelo having to deal with Saunders’ southpaw style as his speed, incredible power, and ring IQ will help bring him to victory.
A Canelo decision is not out of question here but I don’t think there is much value there. Saunders will look to avoid the big hooks and counters from Canelo for as long as he can but I think it is only a matter of time until Canelo figures him out and breaks him down through the remaining 3-4 rounds with a possible stoppage in the back half of the fight.
Prop: Canelo wins in round 7-9 (+515), Canelo wins in round 10-12 (+480)
Thanks for reading and best of luck!
