John Ryder admits it will ‘take something special’ to beat Canelo Alvarez in front of the Mexicans

There is home field advantage. Then there is the manic worship of an entire machismo nation. Population 130 million.

Sixty thousand of them roared at their idol in a stadium of patriotic hysteria.

Canelo Alvarez, defender of not only the undisputed super-middleweight world championship, but also the faith of Mexican manhood, puts this Saturday night into perspective for his English challenger John Ryder by saying: ‘It’s going to be very difficult for him here. He has never experienced such an atmosphere.’

Nor, would the ruler of all 12 stone bands have added, has this 34-year-old Londoner ever taken part in an event of such magnitude.

Ryder’s ring name is Gorilla, but his mauling will have to be much more powerful than his growl if he’s to end Canelo’s vicious culling of British boxers.

Seven have gone against the power and speed of the curiously red-haired pride of the red-hot state of Jalisco. Seven failed.

Five – namely Ryan Rhodes, Amir Khan, Liam Smith, Rocky Fielding and Billy Joe Saunders – were demolished, crushed, knocked out. The two who went the distance – Matthew Hatton and Callum Smith – survived those 12 rounds by defending deeper than Arsenal against Manchester City, with similarly dismal results on the scoresheets.

Of his Brit-bashing, Alvarez says, “Nothing personal. They are all good fighters, so I have to prepare well to beat them. Like I did for Ryder. So this Saturday night he will be number eight.’

The Gorilla makes the right sounds about everything that is at stake and everything that needs to be involved in its effort. Being brave at heart, springy at the jaw, as fit as a fighter can be and better trained than ever will not be enough. Ryder, intelligent as he is, knows that.

“It’s going to take something special out of me,” he says. Extra special when he realizes what he calls: ‘A life-changing victory for myself and my family. One that would place me among the great British upsets abroad achieved by guys like Lloyd Honeyghan beating Donald Curry and Tyson Fury beating Wladimir Klitschko and Deontay Wilder.

“Beating Canelo here on Mexico’s Cinco de Mayo weekend, beating the best boxer in the world today, in a stadium, in his hometown, can be seen as the greatest of them all. I do realize that I could go into folklore. It is talked about for a long time.’

Life-changing? Ryder knows it will take a very famous win to swell the hundreds of thousands of dollars he will receive here to the many millions that would come if Alvarez were forced to activate a rematch clause in their contract.

Something extra special? He says, “I’ve worked my entire career on this greatest night of my life. I’m going to have to rough it up a bit and box it up. Work more angles. Try to be the fastest. But I realize I will have to take risks if I want to beat such a great fighter.’

Therein lies the rub. This career has been an honest, dignified, hard-working, admirable accumulation of the experience and wisdom that has taken him from occasional draining defeats to this brink of glory.

Those setbacks on his record have encouraged Canelo to accept Ryder as the ideal opponent against whom to fully test the success of surgery on the broken hand he wore in a surprise second career loss to Russian light-heavyweight Dmitry Bivol a year ago, except one day. .

Alvarez knows that vultures, thinking their scent is fading, circle above him, over these vast, sunburned acres of northern Mexico.

He’s ready, action man that he is, to shoot them down and says, ‘The recovery has been good. I feel my best again.’

His people are ready too. The buzz – even more so than the buzzards – is in effect here. Man, woman, boy and girl.

Canelo’s own children were among the 8,000 youth invited to Friday’s weigh-in. Those four offspring will be ringside in the new aesthetically designed Estadio Akron, not far from the old stadium where Bobby Moore famously exchanged shirts with Pele at the conclusion of the epic World Cup match between England and Brazil in 1970.

Around here, military history was made during Mexico’s War of Independence, the 200th anniversary year that Canelo honors with this homecoming battle, his first on patriotic soil in nearly 12 years.

It’s his responsibility to bring the Cinco de Mayo weekend of national festivities to a triumphant climax, to the blaring accompaniment of multiple mariachi bands. Will he get a helping hand from the officials – and there has inevitably been controversy over some close decisions coming his way in a long career – if Ryder takes him at bay?

Mauricio Sulaiman, the Mexican president of the WBC, has promised Ryder: “The referee and the judges are all from neutral countries. They’ll be fair and when it comes to the scorecards, the rightful winner will leave the ring with all belts.”

It’s going to be a hot night in this high city. Guadalajara stretches out at 1,500 feet above sea level and the temperature at the first bell at 9 p.m. is expected to be around 70 degrees. That is heated up a few degrees extra by the pressure cooker passion in the stadium.

Ryder believes he fully acclimatized from training at altitude and adjusting to the heat while in California.

There’s even more at stake for Jalisco’s Alvarez than Islington’s Ryder. Will that pressure weigh more heavily on Canelo?

Ryder says he feels nothing. The superstar who confronts him, whose nickname means cinnamon in Spanish, smiles as a reminder that he’s been through this so many times.

He has. Ryder can put up a stiffer opposition for longer than Alvarez expected. It is speculated that his creature can help a southpaw. Although when it comes time to take risks, his square left-handed stance could leave him open to Alavarez’s deadly signature uppercut.

The idea of ​​another late-night British coronation following King Charles 111’s coronation on May 6 is tantalizingly romantic.

But class usually tells in the prize ring as well as the pageantry and the odds are strongly in favor of the Cinnamon Kid snare and cage the Gorilla. Probably in the middle rounds.

Canelo v Ryder for the Undisputed Super Middleweight World Championship will air late Saturday night on DAZN.