Saul Alvarez/Austin Trout Head to Head Comparison: Who Has the Advantage?

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    This Saturday, April 20th two of the best junior middleweights in boxing will get it on in a unification bout. I am talking about none other than Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Austin “No Doubt” Trout. The majority of people are picking The WBC champion Alvarez to win this one and Trout will again be the underdog. This makes no sense to me, but lets take some time and go over the pros and cons of the fighters.

    Experience:
    Canelo Alvarez has over 41 professional fights, at the young age of only 22 years old. That is a lot of experience for a guy so young. However, his best competition within those 41 fights is an old watered down version of “Sugar” Shane Mosley, as well as a degraded Kermit Cintron.

    Austin Trout only has 26 professional fights under his belt but his opposition has been much better, at least in my eyes. Trout faced the game Delvin Rodriguez and beat future hall of famer, Miguel Cotto, who was fresh off a good showing against Floyd Mayweather Jr. Experience edge goes to Trout.

    Power:
    Both fighters have enough pop that you have to respect them, but I believe Alvarez has the edge here. He turns his punchers over and plants his feet more than Trout. The statistics also back me up on this. Alvarez sports a knockout percentage of 71.43%. While Trout possess a knockout percentage of 53.85%. Having the edge in power could allow Alvarez to wear down Trout for the later rounds but you have to be able to hit him, this leads me into the next point, ring generalship. Edge in power goes to Alvarez.

    Ring Generalship:
    For how young he is, Alvarez shows great movement and patience in the ring. He has been able to out maneuver all of his opponents thus far, but he won’t get away with it against Trout. Austin Trout has amazing awareness of where he is in the ring. Another thing Trout does extremely well is gauge his opponent’s range. If his opposition gets in range, it’s not long before Trout fires off or gets back out of range. Edge in ring generalship goes to Trout.

    Speed:
    After watching a lot of tape on both guys, I couldn’t determine if one was clearly faster than the other. Both have very respectable hand speed, so I am calling this one a wash. Edge for speed goes to neither fighter.

    Hunger:
    Although he is the WBC junior middleweight champion, Alvarez is still trying to earn acceptance from some of the boxing critics. However in a lot of fans eyes he is already a celebrity, especially in Mexico. In his last fight against Josesito Lopez his purse was 2 million dollars.

    Even though he was a champion long before he fought Miguel Cotto, Trout has gone unrecognized by a lot of fans. Some would say even after beating Cotto, who is one of the top fighters of this era, he still remains highly underrated and unknown. Just to get the opportunity to fight Cotto, Trout agreed to a ridiculously low offer of $240k. It is refreshing for once to see a fighter who cares more about his legacy than his currency. Hunger edge goes to Trout.

    In my eyes Trout definitely has more of the advantages going into the unification bout on Saturday. If you disagree please feel free to speak your boxing voice and leave comments below. Thanks for reading and being a fan of the sweet science.