By Dan Ambrose: If Floyd Mayweather Jr chooses to fight Amir Khan or Miguel Cotto in his next scheduled fight date on May 2nd on Showtime, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez will challenge him for that date by fighting on HBO, says Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions.
Canelo will basically try and compete for the viewers even with Mayweather taking on a big name like Cotto.
“He’s [Canelo] still fighting May 2,” De La Hoya said via Dan Rafael of ESPN.com about Canelo, who earlier today pulled out of negotiations with Cotto after the Puerto Rican star failed to meet one of Golden Boy’s appointed deadlines. Cotto and his adviser worked going to have artificial deadlines imposed on them, so they promptly ignored it.
“There’s several opponents so it depends what opponent we choose, then we’ll decide if it’s pay-per-view or HBO,” De La Hoya said to ESPN.com . “If Mayweather-Pacquiao happens then that’s the only fight that out of respect for the fans, that we will move from (May 2). But if Mayweather fights Cotto or Amir (Khan) then we’re going. We would have to,” De La Hoya said.
Why would Canelo have to go against Mayweather-Cotto? I could understand him trying to go up against Mayweather vs. Khan, because that wouldn’t be a big fight. It would obviously still be a bigger fight than anything that De La Hoya could dig up for Canelo other than if he were to match him against Gennady Golovkin, which De La Hoya obviously isn’t going to do. But for Canelo to try and compete against Mayweather-Cotto, I think that’s just dumb, really dumb. How can Canelo compete against a fight big?
Canelo obviously wouldn’t be able to make his fight a pay-per-view fight on May 2nd, because HBO isn’t going to say yes to have a fight like that competing with Mayweather if he’s facing Cotto. That would be just asking for trouble.
It takes a lot of ego for a fighter like Canelo to try and compete against Mayweather-Cotto on the same night. If Golden Boy matches Canelo against David Lemieux, James Kirkland or Joshua Clottey, none of those fights are going to be big enough to take eyeballs away from the Mayweather-Cotto fight.
Lemieux isn’t an attraction in the United States, and Kirkland hasn’t fought in two years now since his win over Glen Tapia in 2013. Joshua Clottey is heading towards 40, and he hasn’t had a big fight in the U.S since he was beaten badly by Manny Pacquiao in 2010. That was five years ago.
The one fight that Canelo could take to hurt Mayweather with would be against Gennady Golovkin, but De La Hoya and Canelo likely won’t even consider such a bout. It would be like a sacrifice. Yeah, boxing fans would watch it, but it would be a situation where Canelo would be blasted out in a brutal fashion by a more powerful and much more talented fighter in Golovkin. But if Canelo wants to prove a point that he can outdo Mayweather on the same night, then Golovkin is the way to go. It’s just too bad that Canelo and Golden Boy would never take that risk.
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