For years many Floyd Mayweather fanboys would say that Canelo Alvarez started becoming more defensive and slick after he lost to Mayweather.
It’s like they wanted to give credit to Floyd, a guy they live vicariously through, for Canelo’s slick fighting style.
I’ve seen comments online and even remarks by boxing fans who claim that Canelo studied Floyd after losing to him and copied his defensive moves.
I’ve always said that claim is untrue. Canelo has always had great upper body slickness and as you gain more experience you improve on it.
He was only 23-years-old when he fought Mayweather. When they fought Mayweather basically had a weight drained zombie in front of him who was inexperienced and had no energy to throw combos.
ESNEWS has a video of Canelo’s trainer since childhood Eddy Reynoso telling an interviewer in Spanish that Canelo didn’t copy or learn his defensive moves from Floyd Mayweather, but he learned it from watching other great Mexican fighters like Miguel Canto and Gilberto Roman.
Reynoso said Canelo learned from the Mexican school of boxing. If you watch the footage of Miguel Canto and Gilberto Roman you will see a lot of little nuances in the upper body slip counters that Canelo uses, they do not fight identically because Reynoso said Canelo learned from many greats and created his own or developed his own style which is true.
The shell defense style has been around for ages. Mayweather and his family never created it. They just happen to be one of the last fighters to teach and use the style which was fairly common in the olden days of boxing.
Here is a highlight of the great WBC flyweight Mexican champion Miguel Canto, look at the similarity in style and defense to Canelo’s. This is one of the legends where Canelo learned many of his slick moves from.
Here are some highlights of Canelo Alvarez slick and elusive boxing skills, he is stationary but uses a lot of upper body feints, slips and head movement.
Also if you watched his fight with Austin Trout, which was right before he fought Mayweather, you could see the elusive head movement and counters from Canelo that he still uses today in that fight.
Canelo was already moving very slick and using counters and setting traps long before he fought Mayweather.
When he fought Floyd he was in quicksand likely from being weight drain and having a rehydration clause that wouldn’t allow him to put a certain amount of weight on fight night. If they rematched at 160 lbs with no hydration clause I’d give Canelo a better chance to win, and this is why Floyd only took the fight with Canelo at a catchweight and hydration clause because he needed an advantage.
Just like when Mayweather demanded Marcos Maidana change his gloves last minute claiming they were illegal. He has never fought a boxer without some type of advantage or diva demand in his favor.
What also bothers me is these Mayweather fanatics will act like Mexicans cannot be defensive. They use that term “Mexican style” in a way to suggest that all Mexicans are face first brawlers who have no defense like Antonio Margarito. They use it in a derogatory or degrading way.
Miguel Canto, Gilberto Roman, Ricardo “El Finito” Lopez, and Juan Manuel Marquez are just a few Mexican greats who came before Canelo that were very intelligent and sharp offensive counter punchers. Get rid of that stereotypical image that Mexicans are face first brawlers with no defense.
I suggest these Floyd Mayweather fanboys learn about boxing history and realize Mexico has technical and elusive boxing greats, not everything revolves around their idol Floyd Mayweather.
