Billy's Boxing Blog

This is the second Saturday in September featuring a world class boxing event. Liam “Beefy” Smith defends his WBO light middleweight title against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in Dallas. The challenger is a heavy favourite, and a lot of commentators in America have dismissed the event as a mismatch. I think they’re wrong, and while Alvarez may win fair and square, he will have to be at his very best to do so. Beefy has been chasing this fight for over a year, and has had a lot of time to study his opponent and prepare for him.

Smith is the bigger man. While it’s true he hasn’t fought anyone as good as Canelo before, he is used to sparring world class opponents on a regular basis, so it’s unlikely the Mexican will surprise him in terms of speed or power. Training for this fight seems to have gone well, and the champion seems relaxed, confident and ready. His key weakness is a lack of speed which leaves him vulnerable to counters. His main strength is a relentless bullying style that mixes punches to body and head.

Alvarez appears to have lost weight in a more controlled fashion than for some of his recent fights. He doesn’t look bloated like he did against Cotto and Khan. If he rehydrates carefully after the weigh in, he should be a bit faster and sharper than usual and that will give him a crucial advantage.

Beefy will probably look to press the action, and Canelo may spend most of the rounds on the ropes and looking to counter. If the challenger is able to land those counters, he will win most of the rounds and may even score a knockout in the later rounds. If Smith is able to push Alvarez back and land hooks to the body then the Mexican is in serious trouble and in danger of getting stopped.

Scoring this fight objectively may be difficult because the crowd will be almost 100% backing the challenger. They will make a lot of noise every time their guy appears to be doing something good, and this is not easy for a judge to block out.