This is the biggest fight since the pandemic and potentially the biggest fight of this year. Canelo Alvarez is the pound for pound best fighter on the planet while Callum Smith is a top 5 fighter at 168 pounds.
Canelo Alvarez is a great boxer who does everything well. He has great defence, timing and his most underrated ability is being able to stick to a game plan. He has one of the best chins in the sport and is a good body puncher which doesn’t bode well for Smith. I could carry on about his advantages but all you really need to know is hes very much the finished article as a fighter. His only real weakness is that he can’t fight at a good pace for twelve rounds and does take a few off in every twelve round fight. He also isn’t the most fleet footed but he makes up for these disadvantages by adapting his game plans so they aren’t a problem.
Callum Smith’s main advantage in this fight is his size. He’s much bigger than Canelo however I don’t think this will be useful as hes not good at keeping people at range as evidenced when John Ryder consistently got on the inside and went to work. He’s got power and is good fundamentally but hasn’t shown it at the elite level and has struggled at world level versus average opposition. The reason I struggle to see him winning this fight is because of his performance versus Ryder where the shorter man was able to consistently get on the inside and outwork Smith. I thought he lost that fight and considering Canelo is 5x the fighter that Ryder is i’m not sure Smith has much of a chance.
I think Canelo will win this fight by decision after twelve rounds due to being a good body puncher which should slow Callum Smith who is likely tight at the weight anyway. He’s also the much better boxer and seems to have really filled out into being a Super Middleweight. Smith doesn’t really do anything better than Canelo and isn’t great at keeping shorter opponents away so I don’t see a route for him to winning.
Boxing Fulcrum 