On Saturday, Canelo Alvarez faces Caleb Plant for the undisputed super middleweight title at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
Alvarez, ESPN's No. 1 pound-for-pound boxer in the world, has never held all four belts in a division. As the 31-year-old enters one of the biggest fights of his career, how does he intend to add Plant to his long list of vanquished opponents? And how can Plant, the undefeated IBF super middleweight champion, go about trying to shock the world?
ESPN boxing analyst and two-division world champion Timothy Bradley Jr. breaks down the keys to this fight, the strategies both fighters will likely employ and the X factors that could swing things in either direction.
What makes Canelo Alvarez great? How has he been able to pick up more and more knockouts as his career has progressed, even as he has moved up in weight? Alvarez has transitioned his career in recent years, and he feels like a throwback to the champions of another era.
Sugar Ray Robinson fought 12 times in 1965, occasionally fighting two fights a month. Alvarez isn't close to that, of course, but there's a lesson to be learned there. When a boxer fights more often, he begins to accumulate important elements that help at the highest levels of boxing -- things like elite conditioning and sharpness.
Each time a fighter fights, he gathers information both about his opponent, and also himself. Going up against elite competition as Alvarez has over the years, he has developed his killer instinct. Alvarez is able to recognize tiny things in a fighter's body language, the way someone breathes, moves and reacts, and those experiences have heightened his ability to finish a fighter, now more than ever.