By Miguel Rivera
Hall of Fame trainer Ignacio "Nacho" Beristain is worried that his newest fighter, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., will revert back to his old style during the upcoming Mexican grudge fight with Saul "Canelo" Alvarez.
Their HBO Pay-Per-View showdown is scheduled for May 6th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. And there is a catch-weight of 164.5-pounds in place.
To prepare for this contest, Chavez Jr. hired Nacho to be his head trainer and also brought back conditioning coach Angel "Memo" Heredia.
During their weeks of training at the Otomí Ceremonial Center in Mexico, Nacho has whipped Chavez Jr. into shape and fixed a lot of his mistakes.
The veteran trainer has a certain game plan in place, but fears that Chavez Jr. will decided to brawl it out instead of using his physical advantages, like reach.
He wants Chavez Jr. to use distance and boxing, similar to some of Canelo's past opponents like Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Erislandy Lara - who both gave the Mexican fighter a world of trouble with their movement.
Chavez Jr. has heavy feet and likes to stand on the inside and trade, but Nacho has been working with him primarily on speed and using his legs and reach. He does not want Chavez Jr. to stand right in front of Canelo trading punches.
"My fear is that [Chavez Jr.] .... a certain moment [moment in the fight]... will leave [the game plan behind]. I would like to surprise [Canelo] somehow with different tactics and if we have to go forward, then we will have to go," Nacho told ESPN Deportes.
"We need to make [Canelo] lose the distance. When a fighter makes you lose the distance, sometimes you do not know what to do. With the Cuban left-hander [Erislandy Lara], [Canelo] was stumbling about and with Mayweather he was even worse, [and he's looked like that] with other fighters too. He looks [great] when the opponents stand right in front of him."
"[Chavez] likes to throw his punches and he is brave, he stays in there [on the inside], because his character dominates him and I want him to make another kind of fight. If we're going to try to surprise [Cnaleo], he'll need to come in with another type of fight and then change halfway. It will be necessary to test Canelo, but first let's try to do something different to see what the brains of Canelo are thinking."