(Picture credit: Hogan Photos) By Dan Ambrose: Former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (43-1-1, 31 KO’s) will be getting a guaranteed $1.5 million for his fight on Saturday night against Cuba’s Erislandy Lara (19-1-2, 12 KOs) on Showtime pay-per-view.
Canelo, 23, could wind up with a lot more than the guaranteed money though, because this is before the pay-per-view sales, as well as the money that Canelo will likely receive from Mexican television money. It’s likely that Canelo will eventually wind up with considerably more than the $1.5 million of guaranteed money.
Lara will receive his biggest payday of his career in getting $1 million. He’s hoping obviously to continue to receive big paydays of this type, but for that to happen he’s going to need to beat Canelo and beat him badly.
If Lara defeats Canelo soundly, he mind undermine his own cause, because it’s doubtful that Golden Boy Promotions will let Canelo fight Lara a second time if he gets beaten by him in this fight. There’s too much danger involved with Canelo, a pay-per-view star, facing a real threat like Lara.
Its one thing for Canelo to fight Alfredo Angulo or Shane Mosley, but quite another for him to be facing real bodies.
One way for Canelo to get big money in the future would be for him to face middleweights Gennady Golovkin and Miguel Cotto. Canelo is interested in fighting Cotto next year in May, but unfortunately Canelo has been quiet about a fight against Golovkin, even though both fighters are roughly the same size when they step inside the ring for their fights.
For Canelo’s second consecutive fight, he’ll be fighting at middleweight at a catch-weight of 155 pounds. He says he wants to stay at junior middleweight for the remainder of his career, and yet he keeps fighting at middleweight. Lara thinks Canelo is in denial about not being able to make weight for the junior middleweight division any longer.
The other fighters on Saturday’s Canelo-Lara card will get considerably less than them. Here are the purses for the fighters:
Abner Mares – $400,000
Jonathan Oquendo – $50,000
Juan Manuel Lopez – $125,000
Francisco Vargas – $75,000
Johan Perez – $100,000
Mauricio Herrera – $125,000.
Tomoki Kameda – $60,000
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