By Keith Idec
Rocky Fielding’s trainer thinks those who feel his fighter has only a proverbial puncher’s chance to beat Canelo Alvarez are misguided.
Jamie Moore explained during a conference call Monday that Fielding isn’t just bigger, but better, than fans unfamiliar with him realize.
“He absolutely has more than a puncher’s chance,” Moore said. “I think the term puncher’s chance means someone who can hit, but he’s relying on a bit of luck to land that shot, whereas Rocky is much more of a rounded fighter than to just go in there and rely on hope to land a lucky shot. He’s a very intelligent fighter and he’s underappreciated, I feel. I think that a lot of fighters, especially the ones he spars, say you don’t realize how good he is or how unorthodox he is. We’ll certainly find out on the night of the fight.”
Mexico’s Alvarez (50-1-2, 34 KOs) has moved up from middleweight to super middleweight to challenge Fielding for his WBA world super middleweight title December 15 at Madison Square Garden in New York (DAZN).
The 28-year-old Alvarez technically has fought at super middleweight once. The WBA/WBC middleweight champion soundly defeated Mexican rival Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. by unanimous decision in that bout – a 12-rounder nearly 19 months ago at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Alvarez and Chavez fought at a maximum contracted catch weight of 164 pounds, four below the super middleweight limit.
“There’s a lot of unanswered questions regarding him moving up to super middleweight,” Moore said. “Height and reach advantage, what Rocky’s got is huge. How is he gonna cope with those problems, plus the fact that the size difference [is big] on the night? I know there’s a 10-pound weight limit for the next morning, but the actual different from that point in time, until they actually get in the ring on the night, is gonna be massive.
“You’ll see when they come face to face, in the middle of the ring, Rocky’s gonna be huge, an absolutely huge specimen compared to Canelo. So we know how good a fighter he is. But there’s a lot of questions that he needs to answer, and we’re gonna make him answer.”
The 31-year-old Fielding (27-1, 15 KOs), of Liverpool, England, won the WBA’s secondary super middleweight title in his last fight. He stopped Germany’s Tyron Zeuge (23-1-1, 13 KOs) in the fifth round July 14 in Offenburg, Germany, to win that version of the WBA’s 168-pound championship.
England’s Callum Smith (25-1, 18 KOs), the WBA’s “super” 168-pound champion, is the only fighter to defeat Fielding. He floored Fielding three times and stopped him in the first round of their November 2015 fight in Liverpool.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
