By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions president Oscar De La Hoya says that not only does his fighter former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez want a fight against Miguel Cotto in early 2015, but he also is highly interested in facing Top Rank fighter Manny Pacquiao as well as Floyd Mayweather Jr in a rematch.
De La Hoya believes that Canelo is poised to become boxing’s No.1 pay-per-view star once Mayweather and Pacquiao hang up their gloves, and he thinks that Canelo will be the top star for at least 10 years.
De La Hoya didn’t say anything about how poor Canelo looked in his fights against Erislandy Lara and Austin Trout, or how horrible he looked in his loss to Mayweather. De La Hoya just believes that the red-haired Canelo will be involved with several huge fights in the near future and from there he’ll become the top PPV attraction in the sport.
“He [Canelo] wants to go and fight Miguel Cotto, he wants to fight Mayweather, he wants to fight Pacquiao,” De La Hoya said to KLTV channel in Los Angeles. “He wants to fight the top, top guys. This kid is 24 years old, he is going to be the next superstar in boxing for like the next 10 years.”
There’s little doubt that Canelo will wind up facing Cotto in early 2015 on Cinco de Mayo, but if things don’t go right for Canelo in that fight I doubt that he’ll get another chance at fighting Mayweather. A win over Cotto is likely going to be a prerequisite for Canelo to get a second shot against Mayweather.
As for Pacquiao, it pretty much doesn’t matter what happens in the Cotto fight. Canelo will get the Pacquiao fight even if he gets beaten to a pulp by Cotto, because Pacquiao is badly in need of well-known opponents for him to fight, and I’m pretty sure that his promoter Bob Arum would jump at the chance to match Pacquiao up against Canelo if the fight can be made no matter what the circumstances are.
With the way that Canelo looked against Lara and Mayweather, it’s very difficult to picture him having a 10 year reign as boxing’s number one fighter. I don’t see Canelo as having the kind of talent needed for him to stay at the top for any length of time unless De La Hoya carefully matches him against guys that are made to order for him. Obviously that’s not going to happen because Canelo wants Mayweather, Cotto and Pacquiao. I believe all three of those guys will clown Canelo and make him look bad in the process of beating him.
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