Will Oscar De La Hoya’s Blueprint Work for Saul Alvarez against Floyd Mayweather?

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We’ve all heard it from trainers and fighters alike many times before, “I have the blueprint to beat Floyd Mayweather.” It is one thing to have the blueprint, but it’s an entirely different thing altogether to be able to successfully carry it out and have it work come fight night.

Oscar De La Hoya had his chance to employ his blue print against Mayweather back on May 5, 2007. While Oscar had some success early with his jab, Mayweather seemed to adjust midway through the fight and was able to take the “Golden Boy’s greatest weapon away from him from there on out and ended up winning by split decision in a fight that many people felt Floyd clearly won.

De La Hoya claimed that if he kept jabbing throughout the whole fight that he would have won. He has since claimed that he had a rotator cuff injury that prevented him being able to throw the jab consistently. Whether or not that was the reason is debatable because Mayweather has had a history of making adjustments in fights and taking his opponents best weapons away from them, which is something that he seemingly did against De La Hoya.

Oscar has gone as far as implying recently that he believes that he won that fight claiming, “Well he got the decision.” Mayweather’s upcoming opponent Saul “Canelo” Alvarez feels the same way and has stated in recent interviews that he believes that De La Hoya won.

Nevertheless it has gone down in the record books as a victory for Mayweather and as mentioned earlier most people agree that Floyd won.

Based off of De La Hoya’s early success in his fight with Mayweather, he believes that he has the blueprint to beat Floyd and has said that he will pass it on to Saul Alvarez. Oscar has claimed with this blueprint, Alvarez will knock Mayweather out in eight rounds.

One question that you have to ask yourself is: How can De La Hoya’s blueprint be successful against Mayweather when Oscar lost his fight against Floyd?

Another thing to consider is that De La Hoya and Alvarez are totally different fighters. De La Hoya used a lot more movement in the ring when he fought, while Alvarez is much more stationary. It can also be argued that De la Hoya was quicker than “Canelo” as well as being more athletic.

Although Oscar fought out of an orthodox stance, he was a left hand dominant fighter and was truly a southpaw fighting out of an orthodox stance. This gave him an advantage as he had his power hand as his lead hand but in spite of that De La Hoya was also known for having an underdeveloped right hand as a result of converting over to orthodox.

Alvarez is a true right hander who likes to throw long right hands from the outside which he uses to push his opponents back as he moves forward and inside to set up his powerful left hook off of the right hand.

“Canelo” in previous fights has never shown the same volume of punches, movement, and amount of jabs thrown as De La Hoya did when he fought. History has shown us that these two men fight nothing alike and have two totally different styles.

Taking all of this into account, can we really expect this fight to resemble De La Hoya’s fight against Mayweather? Will Saul Alvarez all of sudden turn into a totally different fighter in the biggest fight of his life overnight?

Well, It’s been said, “Everyone has a plan until they get hit.” We shall see if that is the case come Sept. 14.