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Canelo Has No True Style Identity

This past weekend’s junior middleweight bout between top contenders Saul “Canelo” Alvarez 44-1-1 (31) and Erislandy Lara 19-2-2 (12) has created quite a stir regarding the split decision that went in favor of Alvarez by the scores 115-113, 117-111 and 113-115.
However, there’s more to glean from the fight than who you actually thought won it. And briefly, judge Levi Martinez who scored the fight 117-111 Alvarez, is either blind or inept.
Takeaways from the fight:
For starters, there’s been a lot of chatter since the fight that goes something like this: “If you prefer the fighter who fights more as the boxer who hits and moves, you probably saw it for Lara.” On the other hand, “If you like the aggressor who lands the harder punches, you most likely think Alvarez deserved the decision.” Sure, that’s fair, but Lara was really underwhelming with his low punch output. If you’re the boxer you better be getting off. And Alvarez was very sub-par regarding his effective aggression. For the record, I had a family emergency Saturday night that prevented me at the last minute from seeing the fight live. As I always say, if you didn’t score the fight live and in the moment, your score doesn’t count. I found that when watching a fight that goes the distance and knowing the result, we usually favor the “boxer” whereas when watching it live more often than not the “bigger puncher” usually looks more effective than he really was.
Knowing that the fight went the distance going in, I scored it 6-5-1 / 115-114 Lara. No, I don’t think Lara ran, I think he moved left to right in order to befuddle and force Alvarez to have to reset, which is now the book on how to fight him. At times Lara was on his bicycle a little too much, but if you want to see ineffective aggression at its best, watch Alvarez pursue Lara, which I’ll touch on more.
The one common theme during the fight was, Lara was fighting the fight he planned to going in, Alvarez wasn’t. Canelo had so many gaps where he couldn’t touch Lara, who is no Hector Camacho when it comes to movement. You can count on one hand how many clean shots that Alvarez landed to Lara’s face. It’s amazing that he managed to cut him and if it weren’t for his terrific body work in spurts, you wouldn’t have even known he was there. And it’s not like Lara was moving and hitting him so much that it was a task for him to get inside and work him over, which he obviously intended and needed to do in order to execute his fight. Had I seen the fight live I think there’s a good chance I might have had it for Alvarez by a point because I’m sure his big shots to the body would’ve looked a little more impressive live than on replay. Either way it was close and it could’ve gone to Alvarez or Lara by a point or two.
My takeaway is, Lara didn’t get off enough as a boxer to really seal the deal and left too much to chance. Had he let his hands go a little more, and he could’ve, there would be less fuss about the decision in the aftermath. And that’s on him because Alvarez sure wasn’t making him pay for his inactivity. In regards to Alvarez, he has no style identity. He was not an effective aggressor and if he could cut the ring off even a little bit, he would’ve forced Lara to fight more than allowing him the room to pick his spots and box.
Think about all of the upper-tier boxers today. They all have an identity when it comes to their fighting style. Wladimir Klitschko is a boxer-puncher who pushes the fight behind his strong jab in order to set up his right hand and left hook. Andre Ward is a counter-puncher who manipulates his opponents into counters. And you know if they move away, he’ll go get them, if they try to bring it, he picks them apart on the way in. Gennady Golovkin is an attacker who applies bell-to-bell pressure looking to get his opponent against the ropes and work them over. Floyd Mayweather is a boxer/counter-puncher who will box and pot shot from outside and beat you inside if you try and push the fight. Guillermo Rigondeaux is a smooth boxer, who if you try to impose your will on him, he’ll also sharp shoot you in a vital spot with something that’ll discourage you from trying it again. Manny Pacquiao is an attacker, although he boxed smartly in his last fight against Timothy Bradley.
Canelo doesn’t have a defined style. He’s not a life-taker regarding his power, nor does he cut off the ring or apply constant effective pressure. He follows and comes in straight without letting his hands go. When it comes to making opponents who can really box, fight, forget about it. When it comes to doubling up his jab to set something up, if it happens, it’s by accident. On the plus side he is a great body puncher and has a sturdy chin. But move on him, keep him having to regroup, jab him, and he turns into a robot. And I haven’t seen that desperate urge to win or kick it up a gear.
In the main, Alvarez is a solid boxer with good fundamentals and basics. But he’s not going to out-box anybody that isn’t a walk-in, take three to get one off mauler. He’s not good enough at closing the distance and getting into range without being disrupted by a fighter who moves and throws two or three shots at him. He isn’t a big enough puncher to stop real world class guys with one or two shots like a Thomas Hearns, and he doesn’t overwhelm his opponents with volume punching and activity. He’s also not fast enough via hand or foot to really be a good counter-puncher.
The style best suited for Alvarez is to try and fight as a boxer-puncher. Move in behind multiple jabs, set up the right hands and body hooks. Learn to cut the movers off and not follow them and a little head movement wouldn’t hurt. If he can get a fight with lineal middleweight champ Miguel Cotto next, he better do everything in his power to do it. Cotto cannot box and fight him like Mayweather and Lara did. Oh, he might try but once he’s tagged real good he’ll try and fight Alvarez off and that will lead him into being out-gunned and most likely stopped.
However, if the Cotto fight doesn’t come to fruition, Alvarez better stay away from Demetrius Andrade or Gennady Golovkin, because he needs to clean up his style and figure out exactly what he’s trying to do in the ring first. The takeaway from the Alvarez-Lara fight is this: they were both average at best. Neither shined but it can be said that Lara fought more of his fight than Alvarez did, which doesn’t necessarily mean that he conclusively won. He was also lucky that Alvarez isn’t sure who he is as a fighter stylistically, at least not yet.
Frank Lotierzo can be contacted at GlovedFist@Gmail.com
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Dzmitry Asanau Flummoxes Francesco Patera on a Ho-Hum Card in Montreal

Dzmitry Asanau Flummoxes Francesco Patera on a Ho-Hum Card in Montreal
Camille Estephan’s Eye of the Tiger Promotions was at its regular pop stand at the Montreal Casino tonight. Upsets on Estephan’s cards are as rare as snow on the Sahara Desert and tonight was no exception.
The main event was a 10-round lightweight contest between Dzmitry “The Wasp” Asanau and Francesco Patera.
A second-generation prizefighter – his father was reportedly an amateur champion in Russia – Asanau, 28, had a wealth of international amateur experience and represented Belarus in the Tokyo Olympics. His punches didn’t sting like a wasp, but he had too much class for Belgium’s Patera whose claim to fame was that he went 10 rounds with current WBO lightweight champion Keyshawn Davis.
Two of the judges scored every round for the Wasp (10-0, 4 KOs) with the other seeing it 98-92. Patera falls to 30-6.
Co-Feature
Fast-rising Mexican-Canadian welterweight Christopher Guerrero was credited with three knockdowns en route to a one-sided 10-round decision over Oliver Quintana. A two-time Canadian amateur champion, Guererro improved to 14-0 (8).
The fight wasn’t quite as lopsided as what the scorecards read (99-88 and 98-89 twice). None of the knockdowns were particularly harsh and the middle one was a dubious call by the referee.
It was a quick turnaround for Guerrero who scored the best win of his career 8 weeks ago in this ring. The spunky but out-gunned Quintana, whose ledger declined to 22-4, was making his first start outside Mexico.
After his victory, Guerrero was congratulated by ringsider Terence “Bud” Crawford who has a date with Canelo Alvarez in September, purportedly in Las Vegas at the home of the NFL’s Raiders. Canelo has an intervening fight with William Scull on May 4 (May 3 in the U.S.) in Saudi Arabia.
Other Bouts of Note
In a fight without an indelible moment, Mary Spencer improved to 10-2 (6) with a lopsided decision over Ogleidis Suarez (31-6-1). The scores were 99-91 and 100-90 twice. Spencer was making the first defense of her WBA super welterweight title. (She was bumped up from an interim champion to a full champion when Terri Harper vacated the belt.)
A decorated amateur, the 40-year-old Spencer has likely reached her ceiling as a pro. A well-known sports personality in Venezuela, Suarez, 37, returned to the ring in January after a 26-month hiatus. An 18-year pro, she began her career as a junior featherweight.
In a monotonously one-sided fight, Jhon Orobio, a 21-year-old Montreal-based Colombian, advanced to 13-0 (11) with an 8-round shutout over Argentine campaigner Sebastian Aguirre (19-7). Orobio threw the kitchen sink at his rugged Argentine opponent who was never off his feet.
Wyatt Sanford
The pro debut of Nova Scotia’s Wyatt Sanford, a bronze medalist at the Paris Olympics, fell out when Sanford’s opponent was unable to make weight. The opponent, 37-year-old slug Shawn Archer, was reportedly so dehydrated that he had to be hospitalized.
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Remembering Hall of Fame Boxing Trainer Kenny Adams

The flags at the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, New York, are flying at half-staff in honor of boxing trainer Kenny Adams who passed away Monday (April 7) at age 84 at a hospice in Las Vegas. Adams was formally inducted into the Hall in June of last year but was too ill to attend the ceremony.
A native of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Adams was a retired Army master sergeant who was part of an elite squadron that conducted many harrowing missions behind enemy lines during the Vietnam War. A two-time All-Service boxing champion, his name became more generally known in 1984 when he served as the assistant coach of the U.S. Olympic boxing team that won 11 medals, eight gold, at the Los Angeles Summer Games. In 1988, he was the head coach of the squad that won eight medals, three gold, at the Olympiad in Seoul.
Adams’ work caught the eye of Top Rank honcho Bob Arum who induced Adams to move to Las Vegas and coach a team of fledgling pros that he had recently signed. Bantamweight Eddie Cook and junior featherweight Kennedy McKinney, Adams’ first two champions, bubbled out of that pod. Both represented the U.S. Army as amateurs. McKinney was an Olympic gold medalist. Adams would eventually play an instrumental role in the development of more than two dozen world title-holders including such notables as Diego Corrales, Edwin Valero, Freddie Norwood, and Terence Crawford.
When Eddie Cook won his title from Venezuela’s 36-1 Israel Contreras, it was a big upset. Adams, the subject of a 2023 profile in these pages, was subsequently on the winning side of two upsets of far greater magnitude. He prepared French journeyman Rene Jacquot for Jacquot’s date with Donald Curry on Feb. 11 1989 and prepared Vincent Phillips for his engagement with Kostya Tszyu on May 31, 1997.
Jacquot won a unanimous decision over Curry. Phillips stopped Tszyu in the 10th frame. Both fights were named Upset of the Year by The Ring magazine.
Adams’ home-away-from-home in his final years as a boxing coach was the DLX boxing gym which opened in the summer of 2020 in a former dry cleaning establishment on the west-central side of the city. It was fortuitous to the gym’s owner Trudy Nevins that Adams happened to live a few short blocks away.
“He helped me get the place up and running,” notes Nevins who endowed a chair, as it were, in honor of her esteemed helpmate.
No one in the Las Vegas boxing community was closer to Kenny Adams than Brandon Woods. “He was a mentor to me in boxing and in life in general, a father figure,” says Woods, who currently trains Trevor McCumby and Rocky Hernandez, among others.
Akin to Adams, Woods is a Missourian. His connection to Adams comes through his amateur coach Frank Flores, a former teammate of Adams on an all-Service boxing team and an assistant under Adams with the 1988 U.S. Olympic squad.
Woods was working with Nonito Donaire when he learned that he had cancer (now in remission). He cajoled Kenny Adams out of retirement to assist with the training of the Las Vegas-based Filipino and they were subsequently in the corner of Woods’ fighter DeeJay Kriel when the South African challenged IBF 105-pound title-holder Carlos Licona at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on Feb. 16, 2019.
This would be the last time they worked together in the corner and it proved to be a joyous occasion.
After 11 rounds, the heavily favored Licona, a local fighter trained by Robert Garcia, had a seemingly insurmountable lead. He was ahead by seven points on two of the scorecards. In the final round, Kriel knocked him down three times and won by TKO.
“I will always remember the pep talk that Kenny gave DeeJay before that final round,” says Woods. “He said ‘You mean to tell me that you came all the way from across the pond to get to this point and not win a title?’ but in language more colorful than that; I’m paraphrasing.”
“After the fight, Kenny said to me, ‘In all my years of training guys, I never saw that.’”
The fight attracted little attention before or after (it wasn’t the main event), but it would enter the history books. Boxing writer Eric Raskin, citing research by Steve Farhood, notes that there have been only 16 instances of a boxer winning a world title fight by way of a last-round stoppage of a bout he was losing. The most famous example is the first fight between Julio Cesar Chavez and Meldrick Taylor. Kriel vs. Licona now appears on the same list.
Brandon Woods notes that the Veterans Administration moved Adams around quite a bit in his final months, shuffling him to hospitals in North Las Vegas, Kingman, Arizona, and then Boulder City (NV) before he was placed in a hospice.
When Woods visited Adams last week, Adams could not speak. “If you can hear me, I would say to him, please blink your eyes. He blinked.
“There are a couple of people in my life I thought would never leave us and Kenny is one,” said Woods with a lump in his throat.
Photo credit: Supreme Boxing
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Weekend Recap and More with the Accent of Heavyweights

There were a lot of heavyweights in action across the globe this past weekend including six former Olympians. The big fellows added luster to a docket that was deep but included only one world title fight.
The bout that attracted the most eyeballs was the 10-rounder in Manchester between Filip Hrgovic and Joe Joyce. Hrgovic took the match on three weeks’ notice when Dillian Whyte suffered a hand injury in training and was forced to pull out.
Dillian Whyte is rugged but Joe Joyce’s promoter Frank Warren did Joe no favors by rushing Filip Hrgovic into the breach. The Croatian was arguably more skilled than Whyte and had far fewer miles on his odometer. Joyce, who needed a win badly after losing three of his previous four, would find himself in an underdog role.
This was a rematch of sorts. They had fought 12 years ago in London when both were amateurs and Joyce won a split decision in a 5-round fight. Back then, Joyce was 27 years old and Hrgovic only 20. Advantage Joyce. Twelve years later, the age gap favored the Croatian.
In his first fight with California trainer Abel Sanchez in his corner, Hrgovic had more fuel in his tank as the match wended into the late rounds and earned a unanimous decision (98-92, 97-93, 96-95), advancing his record to 18-1 (14).
It wasn’t long ago that Joe Joyce was in tall cotton. He was undefeated (15-0, 14 KOs) after stopping Joseph Parker and his resume included a stoppage of the supposedly indestructible Daniel Dubois. But since those days, things have gone haywire for the “Juggernaut.” His loss this past Saturday to Hrgovic was his fourth in his last five starts. He battled Derek Chisora on nearly even terms after getting blasted out twice by Zhilei Zhang but his match with Chisora gave further evidence that his punching resistance had deteriorated.
Joe Joyce will be 40 years old in September. He should heed the calls for him to retire. “One thing about boxing, you get to a certain age and this stuff can catch up with you,” says Frank Warren. But in his post-fight press conference, Joyce indicated that he wasn’t done yet. If history is any guide, he will be fed a soft touch or two and then be a steppingstone for one of the sport’s young guns.
The newest member of the young guns fraternity of heavyweights is Delicious Orie (yes, “Delicious” is his real name) who made his pro debut on the Joyce-Hrgovic undercard. Born in Moscow, the son of a Nigerian father and a Russian mother, Orie, 27, earned a college degree in economics before bringing home the gold medal as a super heavyweight at the 2022 Commonwealth Games. He was bounced out of the Paris Olympics in the opening round, out-pointed by an Armenian that he had previously beaten.
Orie, who stands six-foot-six, has the physical dimensions of a modern-era heavyweight. His pro debut wasn’t memorable, but he won all four rounds over the Bosnian slug he was pitted against.
Las Vegas
The fight in Las Vegas between former Olympians Richard Torrez Jr and Guido Vianello was a true crossroads fight for Torrez who had an opportunity to cement his status as the best of the current crop of U.S.-born heavyweights (a mantle he inherited by default after aging Deontay Wilder was knocked out by Zhilei Zhang following a lackluster performance against Joseph Parker and Jared Anderson turned in a listless performance against a mediocrity from Europe after getting bombed out by Martin Bakole).
Torrez, fighting in his first 10-rounder after winning all 12 of his previous fights inside the distance, out-worked Vianello to win a comfortable decision (97-92 and 98-91 twice).
Although styles make fights, it’s doubtful that Torrez will ever turn in a listless performance. Against Vianello, noted the prominent boxing writer Jake Donovan, he fought with a great sense of urgency. But his fan-friendly, come-forward style masks some obvious shortcomings. At six-foot two, he’s relatively short by today’s standards and will be hard-pressed to defeat a top-shelf opponent who is both bigger and more fluid.
Astana, Kazakhstan
Torrez’s shortcomings were exposed in his two amateur fights with six-foot-seven southpaw Bakhodir Jalolov. A two-time Olympic gold medalist, the Big Uzbek was in action this past Saturday on the undercard of Janibek Alimkhanuly’s homecoming fight with an obscure French-Congolese boxer with the impossible name of Anauel Ngamissengue. (Alimkhanuly successfully defended his IBF and WBO middleweight tiles with a fifth-round stoppage).
Jalolov (15-0, 14 KOs) was extended the distance for the first time in his career by Ukrainian butterball Ihor Shevadzutski who was knocked out in the third round by Martin Bakole in 2023. Jalolov won a lopsided decision (100-89. 97-92, 97-93), but it did not reflect well on him that he had his opponent on the canvas in the third frame but wasn’t able to capitalize.
At age 30, Jalolov is a pup by current heavyweight standards, but one wonders how he will perform against a solid pro after being fed nothing but softies throughout his pro career.
Hughie Fury
Hughie Fury, Tyson’s cousin, has been gradually working his way back into contention after missing all of 2022 and 2023 with injuries and health issues. Early in his career he went 12 in losing efforts with Joeph Parker, Kubrat Pulev, and Alexander Povetkin, but none of his last four bouts were slated for more than eight rounds.
His match this past Friday at London’s venerable York Hall with 39-year-old countryman Dan Garber was a 6-rounder. Fury reportedly entered the fight with a broken right hand, but didn’t need more than his left to defeat Garber (9-4 heading in) who was dismissed in the fifth round with a body punch. In the process, Fury settled an old family score. Their uncles had fought in 1995. It proved to be the last pro fight for John Fury (Tyson’s dad) who was defeated by Dan’s uncle Steve.
Negotiations are reportedly under way for a fight this summer in Galway, Ireland, between Hughie Fury and Dillian Whyte.
Looking Ahead
The next big heavyweight skirmish comes on May 4 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where Efe Ajagba and Martin Bakole tangle underneath Canelo Alvarez’s middleweight title defense against William Scull.
Ajagba has won five straight since losing to Frank Sanchez, most recently winning a split decision over Guido Vianello. Bakole, whose signature win was a blast-out of Jared Anderson, was knocked out in two rounds by Joseph Parker at Riyadh in his last outing, but there were extenuating circumstances. A last-minute replacement for Daniel Dubois, Bakole did not have the benefit of a training camp and wasn’t in fighting shape,
At last glance, the Scottish-Congolese campaigner Bakole was a 9/2 (minus-450) favorite, a price that seems destined to come down.
On June 7, Fabio Wardley (18-0-1, 17 KOs) steps up in class to oppose Jarrell Miller (26-1-2) at the soccer stadium in Wardley’s hometown of Ipswich. In his last start in October of last year, Wardley scored a brutal first-round knockout of Frazer Clarke. This was a rematch. In their first meeting earlier that year, they fought a torrid 10-round draw, a match named the British Fight of the Tear by British boxing writers.
Miller last fought in August of last year in Los Angeles, opposing Andy Ruiz. Most in attendance thought that Miller nicked that fight, but the match was ruled a draw. For that contest, Miller was a svelte 305 ½ pounds.
Wardley vs. Miller is being framed as a WBA eliminator. Wardley, fighting on his home turf, opened an 11/5 (minus-220) favorite.
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