Mayweather-Canelo not likely to break PPV records

By Boxing News - 08/29/2013 - Comments

MayweatherWorkout4Alvarez_Hoganphotos1(Photo credit: Hoganphotos_GBP) By Dan Ambrose: If the September 14th fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez is going to break the all-time pay-per-view record of 2.4 million PPV buys set by Mayweather vs. Oscar De La Hoya in 2007, the ALL ACCESS Mayweather vs. Canelo episodes are going to have to do a lot better than the first episode did in in terms of ratings.

The episode drew only 225,000 viewers on SHOWTIME, according to Dan Rafael. Compare this to the first HBO De La Hoya vs. Mayweather 24/7 episode, which drew 1.4 million viewers on April 15th, 2007. Do the math. The De La Hoya-Mayweather first episode of the 24/7 series on HBO totally dwarfed the numbers that the Mayweather vs. Canelo did. I don’t think this was by accident.

It tells you that De La Hoya was a much more popular fighter than Canelo is now. Canelo is just starting out, and he’s not a former U.S Olympic gold medalist like De La Hoya, and he hasn’t had a lot of big fights before the Mayweather Jr. fight. The difference between Canelo’s career and De La Hoya’s career at the time that he fought Mayweather Jr. is like night and day.

De La Hoya had fights against PRIME fighters like Shane Mosley, Tito Trinidad, Bernard Hopkins, Ricardo Mayorga, Ike Quartey, Fernando Vargas, Julio Cesar Chavez and Oba Carr. In contrast, Canelo has fought a near shot 41-year-old Mosley, Matthew Hatton, 40-year-old Lovemore N’Dou, 40-year-old Carlos Baldomir, Austin Trout, Alfonso Gomez, past his best Kermit Cintron, light welterweight Josesito Lopez, and Ryan Rhodes.

How does Golden Boy Promotions expect the Mayweather-Canelo fight to break records when Canelo doesn’t even have the resume to be fighting Mayweather Jr. in the first place? The fight is happening because Canelo has a huge following among his Hispanic fans, but Canelo doesn’t have the following in the U.S that De La Hoya did. It’s not even close. It’s too bad that this fight couldn’t happen in 5 or 6 years after Canelo builds up his resume, and becomes more of a name in the U.S.

With the way that Canelo struggled against Trout last April, it’s highly possible that Canelo won’t ever get to the point where De La Hoya was. A loss to Mayweather Jr. won’t help Canelo’s career, and it’s unclear how much longer Golden Boy will be able to match Canelo against welterweights.

Canelo’s barely making 154, and once he can no longer 154, does Golden Boy keep matching him against welterweights even with Canelo fighting in the middleweight division? That would turn off a lot of fans. Canelo would have to face guys his own size, and I don’t think he’ll do well against fighters that weigh in the 170s.



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