By Chris Williams: Former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (43-1-1, 31 KO’s) is going to compete with boxing’s biggest star Floyd Mayweather Jr for his May and September dates in 2015. Canelo hasn’t even proven that he can bring in half of the pay-per-view numbers that Mayweather typically pulls in for his fights.
Canelo plans on fighting on Cinco de Mayo in May, and then on the Mexican Independence Holiday in September of next year. Those Mayweather’s dates, and if Canelo tries to get on them too, there’s going to be a problem unless 23-year-old Canelo is willing to give ground to his elders to show his respect.
If Mayweather is forced to move off of the May and September fight dates next year, he’ll lose a ton of money. Those dates are prestigious because the difference in money in fighting on those dates and on normal fight dates is huge. Mayweather isn’t going to want to lose that good cash that he gets for fighting on those dates, especially to a fighter who hasbn’t provenb that he’s a PPV attraction yet.
LA Times writer Lance Pugmire said on his twitter “Was also told by @caneloOficial that he intends to fight in May and September in 2015 whether or not @FloydMayweather is an opponent.”
Now it works out if Canelo fights Mayweather in May, because the two of them can bring in another 2 million+ PPV buys. But Canelo will need to beat Erislandy Lara next month in their fight on July 12th, and he’ll need to beat whoever Golden Boy Promotions matches him up with later this year. It won’t be Miguel Cotto, because his promoter Bob Arum wants to let the Cotto-Canelo fight marinate until next May.
That’s when Canelo and Cotto will try and jump on Mayweather’s Cinco de Mayo fight date. Knowing Mayweather, I don’t think he’s going to give up that May 2nd fight date to Cotto and Canelo. All Mayweather needs to do to mess them up is to pick out someone like Danny Garcia, Amir Khan, Gennady Golovkin or Pete Quillin for that fight date, and he’ll end up hogging the PPV buys.
If Canelo insists on fighting in May of next year on Mayweather’s date, then he’s going to end up on Mayweather’s career because Showtime won’t be able to have two separate PPV cards on that night. They’ll need to place the two fights together in a split site doubleheader. In that case, Canelo would be helping Mayweather out to get bigger money. Can you imagine a Canelo-Cotto and Mayweather-Khan split site double header? We’re talking record breaking PPV numbers.
Canelo’s recent fight against Alfredo Angulo brought in just 350,000 PPV buys. With numbers like that, Canelo will be shooting himself in the foot if he tries to take Mayweather’s fight dates in May and September next year.
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