:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/17971045/171448007.0.jpg)
Golden Boy Promotions matchmaker Eric Gomez is hearing good -- well, "good" -- things from Canelo Alvarez's camp, as the 23-year-old Mexican star is reportedly putting sparring partners on the shelf left and right as he prepares to face Floyd Mayweather on September 14 in the biggest fight of the year.
From BoxingScene.com's Rene Umanzor:
"I just spoke to Chepo Reynoso and he told me [Canelo] already knocked off four sparring partners. We've already changed eight or nine people, and just sent him another from Philadelphia. I've never seen him like this. One of the sparring partners broke a rib, two others were injured, one of them injured a shoulder and another was knocked out. So it's been very good."
Alvarez (42-0-1, 30 KO) will be facing the world's best boxer in a month, and certainly won't have a sparring partner in there to crush ribs and the like. But the conventional wisdom is that if Canelo is going to win this fight, he's going to have to be aggressive -- and consistently so -- unlike ever before, and he's going to have to hurt Mayweather. If he can do that, his size and youth give him a shot. If he can't, well, number have tried and number have failed.