Canelo Alvarez gets to celebrate El Cinco de Mayo just how he likes best, boxing.

 

On May 4th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, Daniel the ‘Miracle Man’ Jacobs will take on Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in a belt unification bout.

 

But for Jacobs to capture the WBA and WBC middleweight belts from Canelo, it won’t be easy. He’s listed as a +350 underdog, while Alvarez is sitting at -500.

 

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The Situation

Jacobs was running the gambit on the crowded middleweight division, acquiring 23 knockouts in a row before he faced Triple-G. The Golovkin fight is also one of the only where Jacobs was listed as a dog. So, for the most part, Daniel Jacobs is used to being the favorite.

 

The same can be said for Alvarez who is also used to being the fav. Case in point, his fight against Fielding saw him closing as a massive -2500 favorite. That said, Canelo is where he’s comfortable, while Jacobs is in a perhaps slightly uncomfortable position. It’s likely eating at Jacobs that he is listed as the underdog, thus ‘expected’ to lose. But how will this affect him? Surely it will make him walk into the ring with a chip on his shoulder. But will the chip make him over-eager or do something costly if things are not going his way early?

 

Another factor is the timing of the fight. The Cinco de Mayo card will pull out a ton of support for the Mexican fighters. Jacobs is going to have the crowd to contend with as well as Canelo.

The Matchup

Canelo has an insane amount of experience for his 28 years of age. 54 fights. And in all of those, Alvarez only has one loss to date. And that came against the most incredible defensive boxer of our generation, Floyd Mayweather –love him or hate him.

 

Daniel Jacobs has quite a bit of experience as well. He has stepped into the ring as a professional 37 times, and in over that period, he has only met with defeat twice. One of those came against GGG back in 2017. Because of the fact that his last three fights have gone the distance, some might think that Jacobs’ power is fading. Perhaps it is a little at 32 years old. However, he has phenomenal punching power regardless. He’s ended 29 fights by KO and TKO to prove it.

 

So it will be interesting to see how Canelo handles the power and speed that Jacobs has. It’s been a while since Alvarez has seen the kind of punching power that the Miracle Man has on offer. Jacobs is also a good counter-puncher with a wickedly fast left. But we shouldn’t expect Alvarez to go to the center of the ring and exchange with Jacobs like he did with the more technical, rock ‘em sock ‘em GGG. You can bet that Canelo will be watching the tape of how Jacobs really started to slow down late in his bout with Gennady due to body shots. And body shots are Canelo’s bread and butter. Hang back, play it conservatively, and counter-punch with beastly body blows. If Alvarez does this and avoids getting clipped, he can take the fight the distance and win by decision, or put Jacobs down in late rounds. But, he has to be successful in avoiding those fast, extremely powerful hands to do so.

 

In the end, I think Canelo wins this fight. But with the kind of power that Jacobs has on tap, you never know.