Boxing legends discuss the Canelo Alvarez-Amir Khan matchup and more in fascinating panel

It’s one thing to listen to fighters talk about what they expect from their coming bout, and something else far richer to hear those who’ve fought all of their battles addressing the same matchup.

At a panel discussion Thursday night, former heavyweight champions Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis, former longtime middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins and former six-division champion Oscar De La Hoya gathered inside the new T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas and conversed about Saturday’s Canelo Alvarez-Amir Khan bout and more.

While Las Vegas bookmakers expect Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 knockouts) to successfully defend his World Boxing Council middleweight belt against the 5/1 underdog and naturally lighter former junior-welterweight champion Khan, Lewis and Hopkins said bigger-man versus smaller-man can be a tricky thing.

“If a big man gets desperate” from losing a few early rounds, “he starts chasing,” Lewis said.

That would play into Khan’s hands, given his experience and ability shown in his 2014 boxing lesson against former 140-pound champion Devon Alexander.

Hopkins maintained Alvarez, 25, has adapted and improved from the lessons exploited against him in Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s 2013 victory and his July 2014 split-decision win over Erislandy Lara.

“Canelo has to come out and be the bull,” Hopkins said.

The entire panel agreed the early rounds will be pivotal.

The challenge for 29-year-old Khan, said Holyfield, will be weathering the fact “you hit without doing damage and the heavier guy hits harder and it hurts.”

“You’ve got to hit the guy, move and hit again,” De La Hoya said of Khan, emphasizing that trainer Virgil Hunter has to provide constant reminders to his fighter to avoid traipsing into any toe-to-toe situations.

Khan’s move up from welterweight to accept the 155-pound catch-weight bout -- the fighters will weigh in Friday at 2:30 p.m. -- makes him one of De La Hoya’s favorite fighters.

“He dares to be great, he’s old-school,” De La Hoya said.

The question then turned to the quality of Khan’s resilience -- his chin -- because the British fighter has been knocked out twice and sent to the canvas four other times in his career.

“That’s the million-dollar question,” De La Hoya said. “You can’t count anyone out. That’s boxing.”

Every panelist nodded his head in agreement.

Lewis, sticking up for his countryman, said Khan has a “tough chin. We don’t want to get hit. We have to prepare ourselves to get hit.”

Lewis rejected Hopkins’ notion that Khan will fall into the trap of his fighting heart, daring to fight Alvarez in the middle of the ring and get hurt. It’s a 5/12 favorite bet in Las Vegas that the bout will not go the distance.

“This one is too important,” Lewis said.

Holyfield, 54, who beat Mike Tyson twice and fought Lewis to a disputed draw and a loss by decision in their two 1999 bouts, said it’ll be compelling to see what will happen if the fight extends to later rounds.

“Until you get tired, you don’t know how good you are,” Holyfield said.

Lewis re-told a story about punishing Holyfield on the ropes in their first bout, then being haunted by criticism for not finishing after the flawed scorecards were read. Lewis said he didn’t think Holyfield was that hurt.

“I was hurt!” said Holyfield, who explained it’s important for a fighter -- likely Khan in this case -- to keep the same facial expression even if pain is taking hold.

While Alvarez’s calm impresses at his age, Lewis and De La Hoya said human nature could be at play as it was for them before and during the bouts that meant the most to them. Alvarez has long sought a main event on Cinco de Mayo weekend, and now it’s here -- the first boxing card at the new Las Vegas arena.

“I had to run to the bathroom before my first 10 fights,” Lewis said.

“This is what Canelo wanted,” said De La Hoya. “When you’re disciplined, you’re going to do whatever it takes.”

The fighters also relived their own glory.

Holyfield said in his famed “fan-man” bout against Riddick Bowe, the incident happened after one of his better rounds, so he sought after a 25-minute interruption to fight Bowe after every bell.

Hopkins told of finding motivation as an underdog in many of his great fights. He also got the biggest laugh after moderator Dan Rafael started to ask Lewis, Holyfield and De La Hoya about the meaning of amateur experience, reminding: “You were in the Olympics.”

“I was in jail,” Hopkins said.

Alvarez has spent much time during this fight promotion dealing with the question of whether he’ll fight unbeaten, two-belt middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin next.

Holyfield said a parallel for him was beating James “Buster” Douglas for the heavyweight belt and hearing: “You’ve got to beat Tyson.”

De La Hoya repeated that should Alvarez win, he’ll make contact with the Golovkin camp Sunday to explore that possibility.

“It’s important,” De La Hoya said with perspective and an agenda at play, “to not look past a fight.”

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