By Allan Fox: The reported target date for Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s next fight is November in San Antonio, Texas. There isn’t an opponent yet, but #5 IBF, #5 WBO, #11 WBC James Kirkland (32-1, 28 KOs) is high on the list for the possible opponent to face the 23-year-old Canelo.
A fight against WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto will need to wait until next year in May in order to take advantage of the huge Mexican holiday that month.
Canelo previously fought in San Antonio in 2013 in fighting former WBA junior middleweight champion Austin Trout at the Alamodome in front of 40,000 fans in Texas. It was a close fight, but Canelo got the decision. The fan turnout obviously was tremendous and that was with a lot of inexpensive tickets being sold.
It’ll be interesting to see how much money can be made if the tickets are at full price now that Canelo has had big fights against Erislandy Lara and Floyd Mayweather Jr since then.
Steve Kim at UCNlive said on his twitter “Regarding Canelo’s next fight, there was some early discussion of San Antonio. I know Battah-Leija would love to do it.”
Canelo vs. Kirkland would be big in Texas, as Kirkland, 30, is from Austin, Texas, and has a decent fan base in the state to pull from to support him for the fight.
Kirkland has fought only once in the past 2 years, and that obviously would be a negative for a Canelo-Kirkland fight. Kirkland fought last December in stopping Glen Tapia in the 6th round. Before that, Kirkland fought in March 2012 in defeating Carlos Molina by a 10th round disqualification. Kirkland then stayed out of the ring for a year and a half before fighting Tapia at the end of 2013.
If Kirkland faces Canelo in November, it’ll have been 11 months since Kirkland last fought. If you’re Golden Boy Promotions it might not be a good idea to be setting up pay-per-view fights involving guys that have been so inactive as Kirkland, because it sets up a potential situation where it might not be good fight.
Of course it’s in Canelo’s best interest for him to get another blowout right now like the one that he had against Alfredo Angulo in order to distract attention away from Canelo’s less than impressive win over Erislandy Lara from last Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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