By Robert “Big Moe” Elmore: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez has said he wants to reclaim the Cinco de Mayo and the Mexican Independence holidays and wants to challenge current pound for pound king Floyd Mayweather for those dates. His star power is without a doubt rising and it will only get bigger with each fight. Many of Canelo’s fans have bragged that Canelo is accomplishing more at 23 than Floyd has at 23.
What is lost in this translation is how the fighters came up. Let’s deal with Canelo first. Golden Boy is doing the right thing by putting Canelo in environments where his own fan base (Mexicans) will come out to support in record numbers.
For example, the AlamoDome was completely sold out for Canelo’s fight against Austin Trout. But what really helped the fight sell out was the cost of the tickets with the most expensive being 300 dollars. Brilliant marketing plan. Cheap. Family friendly. And it yielded great results. What also has helped Canelo was the fact that he was fighting on Floyd Mayweather’s undercard starting in 2007.
So he was gaining major exposure. But out of his 45 fights there are only four noteworthy opponents on it. They are Shane Mosley, Austin Trout, Floyd Mayweather, and the recent Erislandy Lara. Canelo has gone from undercard fighter to pay per view headliner. His first with Alfredo Angulo did 365,000 buys. That’s not bad at all when you line them up against other first time pay per view headliners.
Golden Boy is putting 100 percent of their muscle behind Canelo and is not simultaneously building up another fighter on their roster to become a pay per view star. Floyd on the other hand was different. Top Rank had Oscar De La Hoya as their cash cow. De La Hoya turned pro in 1992 and appeared on his first pay per view just 3 years into his career (1995 Rafael Ruelas in a unification bout).
Floyd turned pro in 1996 and won his first title at age 23. Bob Arum did not put Floyd on any of Oscar’s undercards and did not market him to the urban community. Floyd’s first pay per view was with Arturo Gatti and it did 365,000 buys. This is not bad considering he wasn’t on Oscar’s undercard and was trying to go from HBO headliner to pay per view star.
By 2006, Floyd and Arums relationship had begun to sour do to Floyd’s ambitions of wanting the big fights. He wanted to fight Oscar, Ricky Hatton, and Miguel Cotto. All these fights were denied. It wasn’t until Floyd took his career into his own hands, created the Money Mayweather persona and dropping the Pretty Boy moniker, that he became what he is today. Top Rank didn’t push Floyd like they pushed Oscar. And right now, Golden Boy is not pushing anyone else like they are pushing Canelo.
Rather than compare what each fighter has done at age 23 because Canelo’s had more fights and he’s just 23. So I have compared the first seven years of their careers. By 2002, Floyd had won three different titles super feather, lightweight and junior welterweight. By 2012, Canelo had not won any major titles, but minors ones (North American Boxing Federation, WBC Silver title). And there is no need to go into the skills department.
It remains to be seen if Canelo will exceed what Floyd has done in the sport in terms of money and pay per view buys. He’s off to a very good start.
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