Eleider Alvarez therefore leaves August 19 for Las Vegas, where he will face in the MGM bubble the tough Joe Smith Jr.
Eleider was world champion after knocking out Sergey Kovalev and hit the road again to get another chance for a world title fight. And Joe Smith Jr. is an essential step. A mandatory step. Vital.
Alvarez is now as Quebecois as poutine. He is a regular at the Coin du métro, the brasserie-bar-restaurant, and fans of combat sports … and soccer and hockey. Hi Costa.
The fight will be presented on August 22. In less than ten days.
Videos and sparring
Eleider Alvarez will face a tough guy. The man who ended Bernard Hopkins’ career by sending him head over heels on the arena floor. A tough boxer, a member of Section 66 of the Philadelphia Workers, who faced Dmitry Bivol and Sullivan Barrera, two of the best light heavyweights in the world. Moreover, Bivol is WBA world champion.
It’s this sleeveless Irishman that Eleider Alvarez has to defeat to get another World Championship fight.
Marc Ramsay, a Quebecer member of the international elite of boxing trainers, a man who has found himself in his boxer’s corner in dozens of title fights whether in New York, Vegas or elsewhere in the world , collected videos of Smith Jr.’s fights and studied them carefully.
He needs to know exactly how Smith Jr. prepares his right behind his jab, how when he feels stuck he throws a right over the shoulder. Dangerous right which caused the knockout in the first round of Andrzej Fonfara, yet a tough boxer.
Then, when he has analyzed and dissected the style and reflexes of the chosen opponent, Ramsay attacks the groundwork in preparing his athlete. He hires a few boxers who have certain qualities of Joe Smith and sends them boxing rounds against his colt. Sometimes the guys from sparring will frankly mimic the attacks of the future opponent to help whoever hires them to better prepare.
There is no small fight without intense sessions sparring.
So imagine a big fight as important and difficult as the one that Eleider Alvarez will deliver to Joe Smith Jr …
In illegality
Have you already guessed? Have you already understood? In Quebec, because of the contemptuous stubbornness of Horacio Arruda, all sparring is prohibited. In fact, boxing is like a banned sport. A dirty sport.
If we are naive and toton, we will therefore believe that Eleider Alvarez trains while respecting social distancing, that we disinfect his jock-strap and the big bag of sand at each training and that he has not had the slightest round of sparring.
If we are even more naive and more toton, we will believe that Kim Clavel went to fight last month in Las Vegas without having done a single minute of sparring. Well yes, thing, Stéphan Larouche and Danielle Bouchard are so brilliant and good citizens that they sent their athlete to Vegas ill-prepared and disabled!
Of course I put the question to Marc Ramsay. Both knowing it was a cellar issue. Of course Eleider Alvarez will face Joe Smith Jr. without having trained properly! Of course Marc Ramsay replied that he hadn’t done any sparring. Everyone must obey the law, it is well known.
But you beloved reader must know this. Alvarez will leave on the 19th fully ready. After having been entitled to all the training to which he … was not entitled. Do not worry.
But don’t tell anyone, Quebec has become the nation of denunciation; all of a sudden a public health investigator arrived in a gym at three in the morning …
Ah! Ah! “The Gulag, quickly, to the Gulag!” “
Is there anyone in François Legault’s office who realizes that we are forcing our finest athletes, our great champions, to train illegally? Like bandits in the days of prohibition, in the days of Al Capone. Instead of framing them.
I’m embarrassed.
Suggested visits
Paul Houde had his heart attack while completing an exercise EKG. The best place to get treatment.
Claude Julien is lucky too. Lucky in a way since you are never lucky to fear heart failure. But Julien was in a health bubble, surrounded by the best doctors of the Canadian or the National League and as is always the case with the stars of hockey, he was entitled to what was done best and faster for the heal.
I wish Julien the right to a few visits to the Montreal Heart Institute. I am not saying that other cardiology departments in large hospitals are not well endowed with talent, but I can say that the Institute’s bollés are in a world class. A class apart. Peter Guerra, Marc Dubuc and the other great specialists in the house are luminaries.
A big change
The question that is on everyone’s lips now: can Julien’s absence motivate the players? Or will the impact be negative?
Personally, I think it will be negative. But not that much. Julien worked in collegiality with Kirk Muller and the other assistants. The structure of the Canadiens’ playing system will not change. Guys know how to fall back, how to cover the center area, what to do with the puck when it gets too hot in the territory.
The what and how to do, the players know. Have the desire to do it, we will see what Captain Kirk will succeed in infusing his men …
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