This clash is undoubtedly the most highly-anticipated fight of the year as the boxing world was left stunned when the official announcement came in February.
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Also, two of Khan’s losses, one at lightweight and one at junior welterweight, were by brutal knockouts.
Khan claims to understand this is a particularly unsafe path to take against Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs), who can be a powerful puncher at times and one who tends to club his opponents down not with one shot but with a series of heavy-handed punches. “I’d probably treat him the same [way that he treated me]”, Khan explained.
“I feel comfortable at 154lbs”. “Amir Khan’s never been in a boring fight so I don’t think it’ll start now, he’s always been in exciting fights”. Friday’s weigh-in will obviously give a clearer indication of this, but today will provide a sense of whether Canelo actually appears to be the physically superior fighter. “I stay strong in my mind and do what I love doing”. And I can kick hard. Strength conditioning, the boxing and sparring have been different.
It’s the strongest I’ve been for any fight, having that little bit of extra weight can only give me that extra advantage in getting power but the speed is still there. We should be fighting the best and not avoiding each other. He knows what to improve on. I know I’m here as the underdog, but I’m ready to win and take this WBC belt back to my home in England. We are bonding better now than ever. We will have to be very focused in this fight. Khan expects Alvarez to weigh close to 175 on fight night, and to weigh around 162 himself.
Hatton also warned Khan about the hostile atmosphere he faces in the 20,000-seat T-Mobile Arena on Saturday night after he got stick at the much smaller Honda Centre in California back in 2011. That calls for focus, and if he’s in tune, he should be OK. He needs to be defensive for the right thing at the right time.
He remains a significant underdog when he fights for the first time above the welterweight division to challenge WBC middleweight champion “Canelo” Alvarez at a catchweight of 155lbs. “Amir is a very talented fighter. Come Saturday, I’m excited to yell, ‘Viva Mexico!'”, Canelo said.
“If he steps up his game, the fight could be even bigger”.
“So, you know, Mayweather didn’t want to fight me”.
“Canelo is a great champion, in his prime, very skilled and I will need to be at my very best to beat him”. When asked about the possibility of fighting Mayweather, he replied: “Do I want to fight Floyd Mayweather with all the messing around he’s given me?” “Canelo will have to be careful and watch out”. He just really didn’t make a statement, especially in the later rounds and he was just on his bicycle.
MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE coverage of “Canelo vs. Khan”, starting with the HBO pay-per-view (PPV) broadcast this Saturday at 9 p.m. ET.
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Said Hopkins: “It’s not too premature to fight [Golovkin]”.
