By Allen Fox: Next week WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (42-0, 26 KO’s) will be announcing who he’ll be facing in his next fight on May 5th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Although there’s still no indication yet who will be standing across from Mayweather in the ring on that date, two Mexican fighters WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez (39-0-1, 29 KO’s) and two-time world champion Robert Guerrero (29-1-1, 18 KO’s) are the leading candidates to get the big fight.
Personally, I’d be more than happy to see Mayweather in against either of these guys because they can both really fight and they’d be formidable opponents anyone in the welterweight division including Manny Pacquiao. However, Alvarez is clearly the best choice for Mayweather if he wants to maximize the pay per view money he makes for this fight. Mayweather will have a big Mexican audience watching this fight if he chooses either Guerrero or Alvarez due to the Cinco de Mayo holiday on May 5th.
Alvarez, 21, is the bigger name here, although he’s still in development stages with his career and also in building a fan base. While he’s huge in Mexico, he’s not the big, big draw that he’ll be in a few years. He’s not as popular as Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. is in the United States because Alvarez didn’t have the benefit of having a famous father to get an automatic fan base without having to do anything like Chavez Jr.
Alvarez is still the much better choice for Mayweather to fight compared to Guerrero, and Mayweather could expect to draw good numbers for the PPV buys. I could see Alvarez-Mayweather bringing in the neighborhood of 1.4 million buys if Golden Boy Promotions markets the fight good. If HBO can create one of their 24/7 series for this fight, it’ll really help bring in a lot of Mexican fans enamored with the skills and the usual look of the red-haired Alvarez.
It is a real disappointment that Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum won’t let him take this fight with Mayweather, it might not be that big of a deal that he’s not taking the fight because Mayweather will do quite well if he can get Alvarez in the ring. Guerrero will be a good second choice I think that fight could bring in something like 1 million buys, perhaps a little more depending on how well Guerrero can be marketed to the Mexican fans. At the end of the day, the 5’9″ Alvarez might make for a better fight against Mayweather than Pacquiao because he’s younger, bigger, stronger and a lot more sturdy. Mayweather needs a ruggest opponent like Alvarez in order to be tested. Pacquiao, 5’6″, is probably much too small to trouble Mayweather.
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