By Dan Ambrose: WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (41-0-1, 30 KO’s) is really hoping that WBA junior middleweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (43-0, 26 KO’s) agrees to fight him in December. However, if Mayweather does opt to face the 22-year-old Alvarez next, it’s very likely not going to be this year because Mayweather is getting back in the swing of things after a stint in a Las Vegas jail.
Mayweather lost a lot of muscle in solitary confinement and the last thing he wants right now is to be rushed into a fight against the likes of Alvarez.
Alvarez needs the Mayweather fight to help establish himself as a pay per view star in the U.S. Alvarez is already a huge star in his native Mexico, but he’s still at the early stages of trying to become a star in the U.S and badly needs Mayweather or someone like Manny Pacquiao to fight him in order to speed up the pace of becoming a star. Without Mayweather fighting him, Alvarez will likely make it to super stardom in a couple of years or more, but Mayweather can speed that up dramatically just by agreeing to fight him.
Of course, Alvarez would still have to perform and do well in that fight and there’s no telling how Alvarez would do against someone as skilled as Mayweather. Alvarez has been carefully matched by Golden Boy Promotions to make sure he’s facing guys that basically have no chance of beating him and that will make him look a lot better than he might actually be. This is why we just saw Alvarez fighting a light welterweight in Josesito Lopez, and a 40-year-old Shane Mosley. This is why we’ve seen Alvarez recently matched against a past his best Kermit Cintron, a welterweight in Matthew Hatton, another welterweight in Alfonso Gomez. Golden Boy has been building Alvarez up slowly and carefully. Maybe he’s good enough to beat Mayweather? We won’t know until Alvarez is finally put in with him, if the fight happens at all.
Alvarez has the potential to become a crossover star like Oscar De La Hoya did during his career. If that happens, Alvarez will routinely get huge paydays along the same lines as Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. However, he can’t keep getting matched up with old guys or smaller fighters selected from the light welterweight or welterweight divisions.
Golden Boy has to put him in with the best fighters at junior middleweight like Erislandy Lara and Vanes Martirosyan at the very least. The Mayweather fight is understandable because Alvarez and Golden Boy will make out well financially even if things go badly for them with Mayweather totally schooling and humiliating Alvarez. That’s a very real possibility given his lack of quality opposition during his career. However, Alvarez would get so much money for a Mayweather fight that it would help soften the blow of losing in a big way.
Alvarez will likely have to settle for someone else to fight in December, and we could see him fighting a junior middleweight contender or possibly a welterweight. Marcos Maidana, a fighter that just moved up in weight from light welterweight to welterweight, has been rumored to be the next guy that Alvarez faces. I’m hoping that’s not true because Maidana really belongs at light welterweight would be out of his class against a junior middleweight like Alvarez.
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