By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions president Oscar De La Hoya is already planning out former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s next two fights and working on the basis that he beats Erislandy Lara (19-1-2, 12 KO’s) this Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
De La Hoya told ESPN that he wants the soon to be 24-year-old Canelo to fight #5 IBF, #5 WBO, #11 WBC James Kirkland (32-1, 28 KOs) and then WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (39-4, 32 KO’s) next year, possibly on Cinco de Mayo on May 2nd.
“It a perfect world that would be these fights: Kirkland, Cotto,” De La Hoya said to ESPN. “There are different possibilities, a fight that everyone would like to see is against Miguel Cotto, if not this year, next year will be ideal, but there are guys like Kirkland is dangerous.”
Kirkland hasn’t fought since last year when he defeated Glen Tapia by a 6th round stoppage win. However, Kirkland fought only once in 2012 in beating Carlos Molina by an unimpressive and controversial 10 round disqualification victory in a fight that he was losing. Before that, Kirkland defeated Alfredo Angulo in 2011.
None of these fights will work if Canelo gets beaten by Lara on Saturday night. Canelo can still fight Kirkland, maybe. But I don’t see it as nearly as interesting as it would be if he were to beat Lara. Cotto would probably say no to a Canelo fight if he loses to Lara, because he’s probably not going to want to get stuck fighting the loser of that fight.
A Kirkland-Canelo fight would be a decent one given that Canelo has already said that he plans on staying at junior middleweight for as long as possible. With Canelo’s reluctance to move up in weight to fight against middleweights, he pretty much has to fight all the available contenders at junior middleweight, and Kirkland obviously is a notable one even though he fights rarely nowadays.
De La Hoya went on to say that he thinks there could be problems if Canelo wants to fight on May 2nd in 2015 for his fight against Cotto. If Floyd Mayweather Jr chooses to move off of that date, then it’s going to be up to Showtime whether they want to televise both fights or pick and choose the bigger money fight, which will still likely be Mayweather.
Canelo-Cotto still won’t be as big as a Mayweather fight, and they’ll only end up hurting themselves by choosing to compete with Mayweather. The reason is Mayweather’s money is guaranteed by Showtime. He’s not like Canelo and Cotto, whose money will depend largely on how well the fight sells. So, if Canelo chooses to compete with Mayweather for his May 2nd fight date, he’ll be potentially shooting himself in the foot in doing so.
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