Canelo Alvarez isn’t here to box, he’s here to win

When I texted one of my good friends to ask what he thought of the match up between Canelo Alvarez and Miguel Cotto he told me that fight would hinge on the footwork of the two boxers. He said “Canelo has cinder blocks on his feet and has terrible movement.” He also said that if I were a betting man, which I am, that I should put my money on Cotto to pull the upset.

I went against his advice and I’m slightly richer for it.

My friend was right, though. It was clear from the opening bell that Cotto’s plan was to dance around his flat footed opponent all night. Cotto out boxed Alvarez for the entirety of the bout. If boxing was like figure skating and the judges were looking at the purity of the technique, Cotto wins all 12 rounds.

But boxing is mostly about inflicting damage. Those cinder blocks that were attached to Alvarez’s feet were apparently attached to his hands too because everything that he landed, landed hard. Cotto was looking real nice with his own quick combos but nothing he landed really seemed to phase Alvarez. Alvarez would get hit with a couple of hooks and jabs, shake it off, and get ready to come forward again. But Alvarez was landing those punches that make you reevaluate your life choices.  Cotto got hit with one of those uppercuts in the late rounds and you could see him thinking, “Damn, maybe I should go back to school and get my bachelor’s” When Cotto was eating punches in bunches during an intense exchange in the 8th round it looked like he was making retirement plans in his head like, “I wonder if HBO would hire me as analyst when my career is over. I speak better English than Roy Jones Jr anyway”

Alvarez had the overall advantage in percentage of punches landed but absolutely  dominated in the power punch category landing 40 percent while Cotto was only able to land 14 percent.  Numbers like that have me questioning the sanity of Freddie Roach.

The scary part about what we saw from Alvarez is that he doesn’t need to try to box with his opponents. He tried to box with Floyd Mayweather and Mayweather had him swing at air. (Except for that one time where he made really solid contact with the ropes.)

This version of Alvarez knew his limitations and stayed in his lane. He doesn’t have footwork. He just kinda walks towards you and looks to land hay makers like he did against James Kirkland.

The best part of that highlight is when the ref says “show me something,” to Kirkland and Kirkland gets slept and does his best impersonation of someone with narcolepsy.

The people who doubted Alvarez thought that a superior boxer would pick him apart. But when he’s making up for his lack of footwork with above average head movement, taking advantage of his 70.5  inch reach, and landing his power punches with accuracy like he did against Cotto, he’ll be damn near unbeatable.

He’s not overly technical and now he knows he doesn’t have to be. He’s like Rick Ross, he ain’t trippin’ on the technical parts of his style too much.  He’s just gonna make sure those hooks hit hard.

 

Kaepernick gets his chance to chill

Its official. Colin Kaepernick is on vacation. He got demoted to back of quarterback just in time to really get turnt up for his birthday. He may be on the sidelines watching Blaine Gabbert while nursing a hang over. If you see him on the sidelines wearing sunglasses sipping Gatorade then you know what he did with his birthday weekend.

And he’d better enjoy the break while it lasts because as bad as things look for him now, he will be back by the end of the season.

The issue with Kaepernick isn’t one of physical talent. Ron Jaworski caught a lot of heat for his praise of Kaepernick but his analysis wasn’t completely baseless. We’ve seen the flashes of brilliance. We saw him bolt away from the entire Green Bay Packers defense like his name was Usain just two years ago. We saw him lead the team to three NFC championship games and a Superbowl. He’s got the tools to be one of the best quarterbacks in the league. He’s just forgotten how to use those tools and being knocked around by one of the worst o-lines in football isn’t gonna help him remember any time soon.

The general line of thinking is that if the 49ers are making a move like this, then the coaching staff and the front office must think that Blaine Gabbert is a better option to help this team win. Maybe this is me being a 49ers fan and giving the coaching staff too much credit, but they can’t possibly be that stupid. Its not possible that anybody even half way mentally competent looked at Option A that used to work and thought that the solution to the problem was to go with Option B that has never worked. Whats Gabbert about to do to show you that he deserves that job more than Kaepernick? While you think of possible answers to that question enjoy this Blaine Gabbert music video.

If you came up with an answer other than, “Gabbert isn’t an NFL caliber quarterback,” in those three minutes and 53 seconds  then there’s a good chance you’re related to him.

Whats actually happening here is that Kaepernick is getting a break. He’s a  badly beaten boxer who’s been given a standing 8 count. Gabbert is in a situation where the front office and the coaching staff has made his job to lose. And because he is Blaine Gabbert he will find a way to lose this job by doing typical Blaine Gabbert stuff. (The coolest of the Blaine Gabbert stuff obviously being that he cussed at Brian Cushing while running out of bounds.)

People are calling this the end of the Colin Kaepernick era and I can’t blame the sports columnists of the world for jumping to that conclusion. Robert Griffin III lost his job to Kirk Cousins in Washington and Jay Gruden is making every excuse to justify this choice. But the bias against Kap in San Francisco isn’t as strong as the bias against RGIII in Washington. All Cousins has to do is be white and not be Robert Griffin. Gabbert’s excepted to actually look like a legit starting quarterback. Since its impossible for him to pull that off we’ll see the bicep kissing QB back  by Christmas. Which will be just in time for that Kap to get off the stool and throw his punches at the end of the season, for better or worse.