Boxing fans will get a chance to see how good Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s punch resistance is this Saturday night in his Showtime pay-per-view clash against the hard-hitting Alfredo Angulo (22-3, 18 KO’s) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. This is going to be a first for Canelo in terms of him facing an opponent that has power equal to his own, and it should give fans a good chance to see if Canelo can stand up to the kind of big power shots that Angulo will be hitting him with.
Angulo’s trainer Virgil Hunter has been very impressed with Angulo’s power ever since he started training him, and he thinks he’s got the kind of punch that could lay the 23-year-old Canelo out, especially if he’s able to get him into a fatigued state. Hunter doesn’t think much of Canelo’s stamina, and I thinks this is going to be a problem area for him on Saturday night because of the nonstop pressure that Angulo puts on him. Angulo probably would have won his last fight against Erislandy Lara had he not suffered an eye injury late in their fight last year.
“If you’re not ready for it [Angulo’s power shots], he can punch right through you,” Hunter said. “There’s so many types of power in boxing. But he has the debilitating type of power. It’s bone jarring. You can feel it from head to toe.”
Canelo will probably play it safe and box Angulo once he gets hit a couple of times. He can obviously take a hard shot every now and then, but Canelo would definitely have problems if he chooses to stand in front of Angulo and fight him in a toe-to-toe fight, as advertized on this card. It’s being advertized by Golden Boy Promotions as a toe-to-toe fight, but Canelo wouldn’t even go toe-to-toe with Austin Trout, and he’s not a puncher. Canelo doesn’t move very well around the ring without showing signs of fatigue, so you can expect to see him retreat to the ropes and focus on moving his head a lot like he did against Trout.
