How Canelo Beat Callum Smith

On December 19, 2020 Canelo Alvarez patiently beat Callum Smith by a unanimous decision. Canelo used his trademark explosive punching power to negate Smith’s significant height advantage. Throughout the fight, Canelo stalked Smith into the ropes, while avoiding Smith’s punches and unleashed his power punch combinations into Smith’s head and body. On a closer inspection of Canelo’s performance, I recognized Canelo’s boxing techniques to win the fight.

At the start of each round, Canelo patiently controlled the center of the ring by using his fast jab or explosive lead left-hook to push back Smith. Canelo’s power made Smith weary to engage against Canelo in the center of ring and retreated to the ropes. When Smith did throw punches, Canelo smoothly avoided Smith’s clean punches using the defensive shoulder-roll and countered with his powerful punches. Canelo’s defense never retreated, therefore Smith was consistently retreating.

When Canelo had Smith up against the ropes, Canelo used multiple boxing combinations to effectively hurt Smith.

Canelo would jab + straight right to the head. Canelo tactfully used his jab to measure Smith and the straight right landed at the end of Canelo’s punch for Smith to absorb the full power. Sometimes Canelo would double jab + straight right to the head for Smith not to anticipate for the straight right.

Canelo’s combination of jab + right hook to shoulder was effective in injuring Smith’s left shoulder. After the fight, Smith confirmed his left shoulder was injured by Canelo’s punches, therefore Smith was struggling to throw punches using his left arm.

In the later rounds, Canelo would jab or double jab + right uppercut when Smith head was bent over toward Canelo. Besides the jab being effective in measuring your opponent, the jab is also effective in distracting your opponent from the powerful punch. Canelo used the double jab to hide the right uppercut.

To summarize the fight, Canelo forced Smith to retreat to the ropes for Canelo to land his most effective boxing combinations. In this fight, Canelo was most effective as the aggressor and shows Canelo’s boxing style has evolved from a counter-puncher to a puncher.