By Chris Williams: It’s not going to be the end of the world for Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (43-1-1, 31 KO’s) if Cuban star Erislandy Lara (19-1-2, 12 KO’s) does a number on him this Saturday night and makes him look like he has two left feet in front of a large national audience on Showtime pay-per-view.
Canelo can and will still make a lot of cash for himself and for Golden Boy Promotions. He’s their franchise fighter in what’s left of their stable, and it’s just going to take some minor adjustments by Golden Boy president Oscar De La Hoya to bring Canelo back to where he’s winning 100% of the time. That means De La Hoya is going to need to set limits with Canelo by being assertive with him so that he’s not the one picking out his opposition, because we already saw that backfire against Floyd Mayweather Jr and almost backfires in his closer than expected fight against Austin Trout a year ago.
A good comeback fight if/when Canelo loses to Lara would be someone like Carlos Molina to pick up his IBF strap. Once he’s out of the way, Golden Boy should look to match him against Manny Pacquiao if they can get him to agree to fight at the full 154 pound weight limit for the junior middleweight division. In other words, no catch-weight handicaps for Pacquiao. If he can’t handle fighting a junior middleweight, then he needs to stay with fighting Tim Bradley and Brandon Rios.
Golden Boy doesn’t have anyone else in their stable that they can circle their wagons behind to be their money guy. Abner Mares isn’t the answer. It’s got to be Canelo, and it’s possible that they can make him into another crossover star like De La Hoya with the right match-making.
It’s obviously too late to back out of the Lara fight, so they got to keep their fingers crossed that Lara doesn’t clown Canelo the way that Mayweather did. But once this fight is over, Canelo can be a nice money maker for many years to come. You put him in with the right guys and he’ll never lose until he’s in his 40s. He’s got the power, and with him melting down from the 170s to fight at 154, he’s got the size the advantage as well.
If Lara beats Canelo, it’ll definitely put a huge dent in his popularity. But it won’t be fatal for him, because he can be rebuilt by Golden Boy with careful matchmaking, and that means he’s going to have to let De La Hoya and the Golden Boy staff do all of his opponent selection from here on out because picking guys out himself isn’t going to work for him.
There are fighters that Canelo can beat, but he does not do well against the Mayweather, Trout and likely the Lara types. He needs stationary fighters or guys that come straight at him looking to trade.
Canelo can be the biggest money maker the sport has ever seen before if he just takes it easy and lets the Golden Boy staff select his opponents.
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