The middleweight champion, World Boxing Council (WBC) version, Saúl «Canelo» Álvarez, is focused on the defense that he will carry out against the British candidate Amir Khan and has not wanted to speak or give importance to the figure of the boxer Kazako Gennady Golovkin , which has two crowns of the same category.
Álvarez at 25 is aware that if he beats Khan on Saturday night, as all the predictions and bets show, the next opponent could be Golovkin, even mandatory if the unification of the title is sought.
However, before the fight with Khan he insisted that experience has already taught him that the only thing that counts in the world of boxing is the rival you have to face and then it is time to think about the future.
“You cannot be thinking about what might happen later, but you have to focus on the immediate fight to do things well,” said Álvarez, who wants to impose the conditions if the duel that Golovkin wants so much occurs in the end.
In fact, the Mexican champion, to whom promoter Oscar De La Hoya takes his interests, has always given the impression that he is in no rush to face Golovkin, although the WBC has already stated that it wants the duel between the two.
Álvarez does not even consider himself a middleweight like Golovkin, although he holds the WBC crown, but against Khan he has had to stay at 155 pounds (70 kilograms), in what is expected to be the clash between punch and speed.
“He has speed and he’s elusive, he moves very well,” Álvarez has permanently declared during press conferences given to journalists prior to the fight with Khan, which is going to be held in Las Vegas. “But you cannot forget the courage that he has shown every time he got up after a fall.”
That weakness of Khan could be in evidence against the Mexican champion, a fighter who constantly punishes his rivals. But the British boxer assures that now he is a more intelligent boxer under the tutelage of Virgil Hunter, and that he has the technical advantage to beat “Canelo” Álvarez.
Khan has been knocked down a couple of times by shorter opponents, smaller than Alvarez, who has a great punch.
The former British world champion has fought sporadically in recent years in his unsuccessful quest for fights against American Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Filipino Manny Pacquiao.
But now he is convinced of his great triumph without depending only on speed but that it will be a strategy in which he will also exchange changes of rhythm and placement of blows.
“We’re going to have a game of chess at times,” explained Khan, who admitted that Alvarez was taller and stronger. “But in others I will be exchanging blows with him.”
Khan also recalled that sometimes those who are not favorites can also win and gave as an example what happened in the Premier League with the title won by Leicester City, a sporting feat that has generated one of the biggest surprises in football history.
The bets give Alvarez a 5-1 favorite and Khan has no problem with that reality, what worries him the most is the weight is a bit far from 147 pounds, the limit of the welterweight category.
“The good thing is that I’m going to gain it at its own weight and then there will be no excuses,” said Khan, 29. “I’ve seen the video of the fight he starred in against Floyd Mayweather Jr. and he will be the role model.”
For his part, Álvarez stressed that the defeat against the undefeated American champion served him a great lesson and he will not be the same inexperienced boxer, but quite the opposite.
“Canelo” Álvarez focuses on Khan and does not talk about Golovkin
