Unbeaten lightweight Ryan Garcia (20-0, 17 KOs) and Canelo Alvarez posted a video of them working out on the bags in training on Monday. Garcia is training for his important fight against Luke Campbell (20-3, 16 KOs) on December 5th, and he’s going to need all the work he can get for him to win that match.
Those two will be fighting or the interim WBC lightweight title. The winner will face WBC 135lb champion Devin Haney, while the loser will try and pick up the pieces of their career.
In the workout, Ryan is focused mostly on throwing his left hooks repeatedly, which is his bread & butter punch. He walks away occasionally rather than staying in front of the bag, working the whole time the way Canelo is doing.
Despite Ryan now being trained by Canelo’s coach Eddy Reynoso, he doesn’t look he’s focusing on improving his right hand for some reason. His lack of right-hand power has been Ryan’s weakness in his entire career. He should be working on that, especially now that he’s about to face the highly experienced Campbell on December 5th.
I don’t see Reynoso or former heavyweight champion Andy Ruiz Jr anywhere. Those two are missing in action in these videos.
Ruiz Jr started training with Reynoso last week, and he was pretty excited about it. We’ll see how long Ruiz Jr lasts with Reynoso before he moves on after another defeat. The real question is, will Reynoso put up with Ruiz skipping workout sessions?
Oh well, I guess if Ryan gets beaten soundly by Campbell, Reynoso can help him focus on all his weak areas. Ideally, you’d rather see Ryan working on those things now than putting his energy on his left hook smash punch that he uses 90% of the time in his fights.
The former four-division world champion Canelo has been working alongside Ryan and super featherweight Oscar Valdez this week. Valdez (28-0, 22 KOs) will be taking on WBC 130-pound champion Miguel Berchelt on December 12th.
It’s disappointing that Canelo, 30, is working and he doesn’t have a fight scheduled for 2020. He currently has a lawsuit with DAZN, Oscar De La Hoya, and Golden Boy Promotions that’s underway. If it wraps up soon, we might see ‘The Face of Boxing’ Canelo inside the ring by the end of the year.
It doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. So, while the #1 star in North America is on the sidelines with litigation, Ryan Garcia will be trying to become the next big superstar with Golden Boy Promotions.
If Canelo doesn’t fight in 2020, then we could see him in action in May 2021 on the Cinco de Mayo holiday weekend. Of course, that’ll depend on his lawsuit results. If it’s still going on, then Canelo could sit until September of next year.
Ryan won’t do that by beating 33-year-old Luke Campbell, but a win over the British fighter will move King Ryan forward to a match against WBC 135lb champion Devin Haney in 2021, and that’s a fight that could take Garcia’s career to the next level.
Canelo is looking lighter than usual but amazingly fast for someone that has been out of the ring for the last 11 months since his win over WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev on November 2, 2019.
It doesn’t look like crowds will be back by December, at least not in the United States. There’s still no vaccine, and who knows when one will be ready to give to the public. If Ryan wants his December 5th fight against Campbell to be staged in front of a crowd, they’ll have to move it to Texas. It’s not going to happen in California or Nevada.
