“I respect Spence and every other fighter, but I’m telling you, Canelo is on a different level of IQ and how he wants to represent himself going out.
“People are going to be shocked that he’s not with us and I’m talking like this. I’m just being real. You said ‘keep it real,’ and I’m keeping it real. Sometimes realness hurts,” said Hopkins.
I’m afraid I have to disagree with Hopkins about Spence not being able to keep Canelo off of him. On the contrary, it’ll be Canelo who won’t be able to keep Spence off of him, considering he’s going to be focusing on his body.
We could see Spence going after Canelo’s midsection in the same way he did Shawn Porter and Chris Algieri. You can argue that Canelo’s ability to make body shots is no better than those two fighters, and Spence wore them both out.
Canelo was hurt from Mayweather Jr and Austin Trout’s body shots, and neither of those guys is anywhere near the type of fighter Spence is when it comes to attacking the body. Mayweather hurt Canelo with a stabbing jab to the body that had him looking to be ready to be knocked out against the ropes.
Who can forget what Trout did to Canelo after he hurt him to the body. Canelo was so hurt that he spent the entire second half of the contest with his back against the ropes.
Golovkin didn’t throw more than a small handful of body punches in his two fights with Canelo, which is why he didn’t knock him out. If Golovkin focused his punches mainly on Canelo’s body the way Spence will be doing, he’d likely have stopped Canelo twice.
I’m picking Spence to stop Canelo if this happens, as he’ll target his midsection and force him to quit by the ninth round. As I said, Canelo has never fought a body puncher like Spence, and he’s going to crumble.