By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer still isn’t sure if the unification bout between WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (41-0-1, 30 KO’s) and WBA champion Austin Trout (26-0, 14 KO’s) will be taking place on the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Robert Guerrero undercard on May 4th.
According to Steve Kim, Schaefer is hoping to find out in the next 24 hours if the Canelo-Trout bout is possible for the undercard or if Canelo will be facing another opponent instead. We could see Canelo facing another beatable fighter in order to keep the Canelo training going long enough for him to get a fight against Mayweather.
So what’s the hold up? It’s got to be money related because Trout is a champion and he’s likely not going to be as cheap as the weak fodder opposition that Golden Boy has been matching against Canelo for a number of years.
With a lot of fighters on the card needing to be paid, Schaefer needs to make the numbers work for the fight to go ahead. At the same time I’m guessing he wouldn’t mind so terribly much if Canelo faced someone else less dangerous than Trout because this is an opponent that can actually beat Canelo, and expose his lack of skills.
Having Canelo beaten at this point in his career could hurt Golden Boy because they won’t be able to immediately transform Canelo into a big pay-per-view star once Trout exposes him as a limited flat-footed fighter in the Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. mold.
I wouldn’t be surprised if money is the excuse for Golden Boy to steer their young would be so superstar Canelo around the dangerous Trout into safer waters against one of their beatable fighters like Alfredo Angulo or maybe another welterweight. I’m hoping that’s not the case but I can definitely see Schaefer telling fans that Trout wanted too much money and they were forced to match Canelo against Angulo. That is so predictable that it’s not even funny.
I think if Canelo doesn’t face Trout on May 4th, then he never face him.
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