By Dan Ambrose: Former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-1-1, 30 KO’s) has decided to fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, for his next fight on March 8th next year. It’s going to be a pay-per-view bout against a still to be determined opponent. This will be Canelo’s first fight where he himself is the main attraction in a PPV bout.
In his last fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. last September, it was Mayweather who was considered the main draw. This time it’s going to be Canelo, and it’ll be a rest to his drawing power whether he can bring in the fans to purchase his fight on PPV.
Golden Boy Promotions are trying to make it easy for him to get a big payday for his next fight by offering the fight to Miguel Cotto, but there’s still no word whether Cotto will accept the fight or not. If not, then Cotto will likely face IBF junior middleweight champion Carlos Molina, and that’s going to be difficult for the fight to bring in big PPV numbers because Molina doesn’t have a big name or big power and the fight would be considered a mismatch.
Canelo was totally outclassed by Mayweather in losing by a 12 round majority decision. It probably would have been even more one-sided than it was if Mayweather hadn’t eased up a little on the red-headed Canelo in the last four rounds. It was embarrassingly one-sided and you can say pretty much that Canelo was badly exposed in the fight.
We could very well see Canelo get beaten again in his next fight even if it’s Molina, because Mayweather created the blueprint in how to defeat him by using his boxing skills. If Molina or Cotto do what Mayweather did to him then we could Canelo go down to defeat for the second time. Boxing fans will likely give Canelo a pass for his loss to Mayweather, due to him being such a great fighter, but if he Canelo loses his next fight to Molina or Cotto, it’s likely that boxing fans will jump off the Canelo express like rats from a sinking ship.
Canelo will lose a lot of fans if he gets beaten for a second time, and he’ll have to figure out another way to reinvent himself. Moving up to middleweight is probably a no go for Canelo, because guys like Sergio Martinez, Gennady Golovkin and Peter Quillin would have too much power for him.
At the same time, Canelo can’t move back down to 147 because he’s got a middleweight’s frame. He’ll be stuck at 154 fighting the likes of Erislandy Lara, Demetrius Andrade, Carlos Molina and Austin Trout, unless Golden Boy will have Canelo facing welterweights while fighting at junior middleweight. That’s a distinct possibility too. We’ve already see that recently with Canelo fighting welterweights Josesito Lopez, Mayweather, Matthew Hatton, Shane Mosley, and Kermit Cintron.
Cotto vs. Canelo would be a good fight if Cotto says yes to the fight. It’ll be the quickest way for Canelo to get back to the top if he should win, but it’ll also be the quickest way for Canelo to get exposed again as well because Cotto has good skills and excellent power.
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