Canelo Alvarez Would Be Wise to Wait for Fight Against Floyd Mayweather

Apparently, Saul "Canelo" Alvarez is eager to pick up his first professional loss. 

After the 22-year-old improved his record to 42-0-1 with a victory over the previously undefeated Austin Trout on April 20, Canelo, in a quote provided by the Los Angeles Times' Lance Pugmire, said: "How many times do I have to say it? [Floyd] Mayweather is who I want." 

Obviously, Canelo isn't making this statement with the intention of losing, but that doesn't change the fact that that would be the result. 

Alvarez has been supremely impressive in his young, but accomplished, career. 

He doesn't boast many marquee wins, but his light middleweight, title-winning effort, in a unanimous decision, over Trout increased his rapidly rising profile. 

In that fight, Canelo's impressive power was on full display. While he didn't add to his career total of 30 knockouts, in Round 7, he did send Trout to his first career knockdown. 

He also landed punishing blows throughout the fight. 

That power would be his key to any possible success against Mayweather. Money is so hard to hit, that an opponent's only realistic chance of victory is to knock him out, or at least down a few times to help boost the scorecard totals with some 10-8 rounds. 

However, Canelo also put something on display against Trout that would doom him against Money: his lack of defense. 

Despite punishing Trout with big blows, Canelo still landed 30 fewer punches, as Trout landed 154 of them. 

Trout is a jab artist, and he threw more than 700 punches to land those 154, but don't let that hide the fact that Canelo is far too vulnerable a target to survive fighting someone like Mayweather. 

By using his elite defensive skills to lure opponents into a string of missed punches, Mayweather will pick his opponents apart with counterpunches. 

In his May 4 victory over Robert Guerrero, Mayweather easily dispatched of Guerrero's attempt to out-physical him, and consequently, he picked him apart like a surgeon. 

Check out these stats provided by CompuBox: 

I'm not trying to compare the talent of Guerrero and Canelo here. But I do think this is still a good foreshadowing as to what would happen to Canelo. 

He would be forced into misses, and he doesn't have the defense to avoid Mayweather's slew of pot shots. 

This would prevent Canelo from ever getting into a rhythm, or ever taking control of the fight. 

If Canelo wants to beat Floyd Mayweather, he has to dramatically improve his defense and punching efficiency. At 22, he obviously has plenty of time to improve, and time is exactly what he needs before taking on Mayweather.