By Dan Ambrose: The September 15th fight between WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez and challenger Josesito Lopez is now officially a done deal for the Independence day weekend in a fight that will be aired on Showtime. CBS reportedly took a pass on the fight for some reason. In addition to the Alvarez vs. Lopez fight, a bout between WBC featherweight champion Jhonny Gonzalez and Daniel Ponce De Leon to help beef up the broadcast.
Goodness knows the Alvarez-Lopez fight card is going to need all the help it can get because it’s going to be competing with the fight on HBO on the same night between WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. vs. Sergio Martinez on pay-per-view. Golden Boy is going to have to come up with a lot better than De Leon-Gonzalez and Alvarez-Lopez if they want to draw fans away from the Chavez Jr-Martinez fight.
The Alvarez-Lopez fight is receiving a lot of criticism because Golden Boy Promotions is matching Alvarez up with a fighter that just recently moved up to welterweight and beat Victor Ortiz at a 144 pound catch-weight. Asking Lopez to fight a guy 10 pounds heavier than that is asking for trouble for Lopez and for boxing fans that will be viewing this mismatch.
In fairness to Golden Boy Promotions, they probably weren’t going to do well anyway even if they put an actual quality junior middleweight because most of the top guys they could have chosen are unrecognizable to many casual boxing fans. There’s not much of a gain by putting Alvarez in with quality fighters at junior middleweight if the casual boxing fan doesn’t know the difference between those fighters and Lopez. There’s also a high degree of risk by putting Alvarez in with someone good, because he’s a pretty limited fighter and might lose to guys like Erislandy Lara and Austin Trout.
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