By Dan Ambrose: WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-0-1, 30 KO’s) appears to have drawn a line in the sand in terms of the weight he’ll agree to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. (44-0, 26 KO’s) on September 14th by saying he won’t go below 154 to fight him.
It doesn’t matter that the 22-year-old Canelo isn’t as old the 36-year-old Mayweather or as accomplished or as talented, he’s still stubbornly sticking to his condition that the fight must take place at 154.
In other words, Canelo is calling the shots with Mayweather by telling him what weight the fight has to take place at. Mayweather has already said that he wants Canelo to fight him at 147 and that he doesn’t want to gain weight to fight him.
Canelo said to Univision Deportes “I’ll fight at my weight [154] against Mayweather. I cannot go lower than 154 because that’s where I feel good. My team and I are ready to fight Mayweather.”
By standing firm on not going any lower than 154, Canelo is saying goodbye to his chances of a big fight with Mayweather. He and his team where the ones that have been talking about wanting to fight Mayweather for at least a year now, maybe more, but not that he has the chance, Canelo is messing it up by not agreeing what Mayweather is asking him.
Mayweather doesn’t need the 22-year-old Canelo because he’s already pay per view star. Canelo has never even headlined a PPV fight during his career, and he’s not in the position to pressure Mayweather to move up to his weight.
If Canelo isn’t willing to come down to 147 to make the fight happen then it’s no big deal for Mayweather. He’ll still get $30 million per fight for his remaining five fights in his contract with Showtime/CBS in fighting welterweight from his own weight class.
Canelo, who came into his last fight weighting 172 lbs [light heavyweight], will need to look for another welterweight to pull up in weight to fight. I’m sure they won’t make a fuss about fighting him at 154. But Mayweather doesn’t need to and it wouldn’t be smart for him to do that because he never weighs more than 150 lbs. for his fights.
If he was to say yes to a fight with Canelo, we’d like see Mayweather coming into the fight at 150 lbs, while Canelo came in at 172, sporting a 22 pound advantage or possibly even more than that. Fighting someone with a 22 pound weight advantage is very difficult when you weigh between 146 and 150 like Mayweather.
I don’t see why Canelo doesn’t move up to middleweight because that’s what he basically is. He’s a middleweight who somehow is able to drain down to junior middleweight and then welterweights. Why Canelo doesn’t want to fight at the weight that is more natural to his body is unclear to me.
Is Canelo just sticking around the junior middleweight division to try and get a big payday fight with Mayweather? That’s the only popular welterweight that Canelo can fight. If he can’t get that fight because of his own unwillingness to lose 7 pounds to get down to 147, then Canelo needs to move up his natural weight, middleweight, and start fighting guys his own size.
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