Canelo fights fixed?

Your excuses about the Callum fight are just excuses, Callum did the exact same things against Ryder. Kovalev DID throw big shots, but he was countered hard at every turn, which made him go back to throwing light shots. No excuses!

 

Yes, Callum looked even more pathetic against Ryder - so his timid showing against a much better fighter like Canelo was hardly surprising!

 

I made a thread just like this but it was locked.

I agree- very strange fights. If Smith (taller longer guy) had held Canelo (inside expert) at least a FEW times it would have made a lot of sense. Has he not seen Klitschko fight smaller guys for example... And the kov fight was a spar. It's almost as if there were stipulations made. But hey it is what it is

 

Fixed? No.

Heavily stacked? Yes.

Canelo is already a great fighter and I find it sad that he needs to resort to every kind of trick to make sure he wins, be it weight games, short camps, rehydration clauses, PEDs, stacked wraps, favourable judges etc. It puts a question mark on what he's done imho.

 

I can see why folks might think that maybe about Kov, but forget about Ryder, and go back and watch the Smith vs Skoglund fight - Smith was getting lit up like a Christmas tree, but because Skoglund didn't hit very hard and didn't have a tight defense, Mundo was able to eke out a win.

But IMO he is one of the most basic and limited 168 champs I can recall. Prime Groves and Degale both beat Smith quite easily let alone Froch or Calzaghe.

On paper, yes this is a great win for Canelo and great for his resume - and take nothing away from him, he did look great. But I think when you look into it in more detail it's not one of Canelo's better wins.

One other thing to maybe note about Canelo, is that maybe now, 168 is a pretty natural weight for him, and his natural tendency to gas/ have stamina issues (which i've seen at 154 and 160) was nowhere against Smith - of course, that's probably more easily explained that Smith did not force his tempo on Canelo, but still worth considering.

 

Yep Smith just isn't that good. He looks good at first glance with his size and sound fundamentals but you really break down his style, no head movement, basic high guard defence which is the guard adopted by fighters with no head movement, wide stance, doesn't move much, gives up his height by crouching down and gives up his reach by trading at mid range, he simply doesn't fight like a tall rangy fighter should which should tell anyone knowing what they are looking at that Smith isn't that good, decent but will always get dominated at the top level.

Smith is basically Nathan Cleverly 2.0, bigger but not actually any better, maybe worse. As you say his skill set is so basic, other than size he's not exceptional in any way. In terms of British super middleweight world champions he doesn't rank very highly at all.

 

Neither of them were going to take the fight to him, it's not their real style both are better at mid range to long range and going right at Canelo suits Canelo usually as he's the better inside fighter and a natural counter puncher, walking right at him is usually a recipe to get KO'ed unless you have GGG's chin.

Yes they didn't throw much, that's because Canelo is elusive and he punishes you with counters if you miss or even if you land so that makes fighters more hesitant to throw as they know it exposes them to a counter.

Smith as never been a mover, he always stands right in front of his opponents even giving up his reach a lot of the time. Just watch the Ryder fight, Ryder didn't even need to work his way in at times, he's just walk forward and there was Smith ready to be hit.

Kovalev is a better mover than Smith and we saw that in his fight with Canelo, he often was circling, moving laterally but he's never going to be the type that uses a ton of movement like BJS or Hopkins. Kova is a puncher, his mindset is that of a puncher so he always wants to be just out of range where he can be in a position to throw a KO punch at any time so of course he's going to be in front of Canelo a lot of the time, though he is usually circling he just won't look to do hit and run tactics that isn't who he is as a fighter.

 

I think if Canelo is that good that his fights now looked fixed, that says more about his abilities than anything else.

 

To answer your question:
Is the Pope a catholic ?

 

Why would they have to fix a fight against a scrub like Smith?

 

Only 'fixed' in the sense of careful matchmaking and risk/reward management, which has been a thing in combat sports since there were combat sports. It's okay not to like it, but let's not pretend Canelo is the first or most guilty of doing this.

 

No, Smith was just the perfect style for Canelo to look good against, as I correctly stated in my prediction. Saunders and possibly Plant is where you will see struggle.