By Robert Morales
Ever since the junior middleweight title-unification fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Saul "Canelo" Alvarez was announced Wednesday for Sept. 14 at MGM Grand in Las Vegas, thousands of tweets have been sent out about a fight that figures to draw worldwide attention. Many of them have centered on whether Alvarez is ready for someone like Mayweather, the pound-for-pound king.
Mayweather-Alvarez will be co-promoted by Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions and Mayweather Promotions. Golden Boy matchmaker Eric Gomez on Friday talked about Alvarez's mission to become that complete fighter, not just one who can knock out someone. With 30 knockouts among his 42 victories, he is quite capable of that.
"I'm going to steal a quote from Bernard Hopkins, 'Defense is a weapon,' " Gomez said. "Any fighter that has good defensive skills is always going to be tough to fight."
Alvarez (42-0-1) is a Golden Boy fighter, so Gomez has seen first-hand the way Alvarez has been honing his defensive skills.
"That is one of the things he has been working on in the gym, and just to see the transformation in his style has been beautiful to watch," Gomez said. "I've been in the gym with him and I've seen some of the things he's been working on and being able to apply them into his game plan has been really good.
"It's going to pay dividends. Floyd has fought many Mexican fighters and a lot of them have been typical. They're very tough, very aggressive, but easy to hit. This time he is going to be fighting a strong kid who is not going to be easy to hit."
"Canelo has a lot to prove in this fight. He has to prove he is ready for the big stage and ready to fight the best and go 12 hard rounds and match Floyd step for step. That's the big question. Floyd has done it many times."
Robert Morales covers boxing for the LA Daily News and BoxingScene.com.
