Santos Saúl Álvarez Barragán vs. Vladimir Igorevich Shishkin

Most pundits expect the next opponent for the sport's current international standard bearer (whether all of us like it or not) on Cinco De Mayo weekend to be John "The Gorilla" Ryder, with the southpaw slugger Brit currently his WBO mandatory and in possession of that org's interim belt. Should that match-up fall through for whatever reason, though, the backup plan could be the long slept-on Russian. An all around solid surgical striker, the undefeated contender triumphed a fortnight past in an IBF eliminator, entering #9 before outpointing 7th-ranked former titlist José Uzcátegui. We will have to see where he lands when January's updated rankings are published - presumably top 5.

His promoter, Dmitry Salita, has attempted to bait the Mexican megastar in the media by dangling the carrot of Shishkin's stylistic similarities to foil Dmitry Bivol, potentially providing preparatory practice for Canelo en route to revenge. Of course, they likely hope that Canelo's hubris will lead him to assume that Bivol's countryman is of a low enough level to still be a cake walk. I'm not so sure. Shishkin is younger, fresher, taller and longer (and a little more heavy handed - all of the above by only modest margins, to be fair) than Bivol, but boxes in a less silky, somewhat more predictable manner...and averages a few more punches per round thrown.

It'd be interesting.

 

Yeah, based on this and your response in the Ryder thread, it seems like we both rate Shishkin's chances of running it close enough to get a miracle nod a little higher, but we're both cynical enough to be resigned to Canelo winning by hook or by crook - mo small amount of emphasis on the latter - unless his opponent is either insanely slick, or a murderous Kudryashov level hitter (but preferably not a glass cannon, bad example )

Either way, come May, a fighter we both like quite a bit is going to be sacrificed at the ginger's altar.