By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions president Oscar de La Hoya and his most valuable flagship fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KOs) may have boxed Floyd Mayweather Jr (47-0, 26 KOs) into an untenable position where he will absolutely need to face Manny Pacquiao in his next fight if he wants to keep his highly valued May 2nd fight date on Cinco de Mayo.
De La Hoya is setting Canelo up with a fight against the popular slugger James Kirkland (32-1, 28 KOs) on regular non-pay-per-view HBO on May 2nd. They intend to fight on that date even if Mayweather chooses to face his plan-B opponent Miguel Cotto on Showtime pay-per-view.
What this means for Mayweather and Cotto is that they could see their fight bring in far fewer pay-per-view buys than it normally would get if they didn’t have a popular fighter like Canelo fighting on the same date on free HBO against Kirkland.
The move by Golden Boy leaves Mayweather with pretty much no other choice but to try and work out a deal with Pacquiao if he wants to fight on May 2nd. If Mayweather fights Cotto on May 2nd with Canelo facing Kirkland on HBO on the same night, Mayweather will be lucky to bring in 800,000 pay-per-view buys. The competition will simply be too much for the Mayweather-Cotto fight to do as well they would like.
Mayweather could of course move his fight against Cotto to a different date, but that would be seen as him surrendering to the younger 24-year-old red-headed Canelo, and it’s doubtful that Mayweather will want to be seen doing that. He’s got too much pride for him to give up his May 2nd fight date to the young red rooster.
If Mayweather was thinking of getting out of the Pacquiao negotiations in order to face the softer target of Cotto, I think the Canelo-Kirkland fight news likely cured Mayweather of that thought, because it just won’t work out for Mayweather if Canelo is willing to stubbornly fight on the same night as him.
It’s a move that actually hurts Canelo as well, because if he fights on the same night as Mayweather, then his fight against Kirkland will be seen by far fewer boxing fans than it would be otherwise.
For a fighter that is trying to grow in popularity in the United States in order to become a crossover star like De La Hoya once was, it’s kind of a stupid move on Canelo’s part to try and compete with Mayweather. But Canelo has a big ego and he feels that the Mexican holiday fight dates should have a Mexican fighter like himself fighting on those dates.
Mayweather has been fighting on the Mexican holidays the last few years without any serious competition until now. For him to keep those dates, he’s pretty much forced into facing the likes of Pacquiao every time.
If Canelo is willing to still fight on the same night as Mayweather even if he’s facing Cotto, then that suggests that the only guy that Mayweather can fight to bump Canelo off of those dates each time is Pacquiao.
Again, it’s not the brightest move for Canelo to be willing to be seen by far fewer boxing fans by competing with Mayweather for the Mexican holiday fight dates, but Canelo and Golden Boy obviously think Mayweather will back down and abandon the dates unless he chooses to fight Pacquiao.
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