(Photo credit: Tom Casino/Showtime) By Robert Elmore: WBA/.WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez has had a good career so far. He’s only 22 years old and has 40 fights to his resume. But to state that he’s the main reason the tickets sold out or that the fight is going to be a huge success is ridiculous. He was just fighting on Floyd Mayweather Jr’s undercard gaining exposure. The casual fan does not know who Canelo is.
Contrary to popular belief, Floyd has a lot of fans. He has over 4 million twitter followers. It takes two to make a pay per view event. Fans are quick to point out the 40,000 fans who packed the Alamo Dome against Austin Trout, but leave out the fact that the cheapest ticket was 10 dollars and the most expensive ticket was 300 dollars. That was Floyd’s cheapest ticket for his fight Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero fight. And speaking of Guerrero, no official pay per view numbers were given, but Showtime President Steve Espinoza says the fight did over a million buys. I don’t know. I haven’t seen the numbers nor do I have excess to the actual numbers.
What some have still failed to realize was Guerrero was Floyd’s MANDATORY CHALLENGER. You know what that is in boxing right? It means he is next in line for the champion’s belt. Floyd had two choices; either do the fight or be stripped of his WBC belt. Had Floyd vacated the belt and took on someone else the haters would have poured out in droves. In fact they did.
When Floyd announced that he would be fighting IBF champ Devon Alexander via twitter, the blogs were overrun with comments on how Floyd was ducking The Ghost. Floyd out classed Robert when a lot fans said that “this was Floyd toughest challenge”.
Now back to Canelo. If Canelo is larger than life like his fans claim, then why weren’t his fights against Jose Miguel Cotto, Ryan Rhodes, Kermit Cintron, Alfonso Gomez or Josesito Lopez pay per view headliners?
Why isn’t Canelo purses now where near Floyd’s? Canelo’s purse against Shane Mosley was 1.2 million dollars. Floyd’s base purse against Shane was 22.5 million bucks. Canelo’s purse against Carlos Baldomir was 350,000. Floyd’s purse was 8,000,001 dollars and that event was a pay per view event. On top of this, Canelo’s resume is nowhere near Floyd’s.
Even if Canelo get’s pass Floyd (which I don’t think he will) who in his division can give him a million buy pay per event and give him the guaranteed purses that wants? Both have over 40 fights, one has fought hall of famers and the other..well….Let’s see what Canelo does after the Floyd fight. But Floyd’s career says enough.
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