Canelo interested in Mayweather rematch

By Boxing News - 05/08/2015 - Comments

1-CaneloKirklandAstros_HoganphotosBy Dan Ambrose: Former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KOs) is still trying to rebuild his once promising career following his loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2013, and his poor performance against Erislandy Lara last year in July.

Canelo, 24, says he wants a rematch against Mayweather because he feels he’s learned new things since their fight two years ago. Canelo was pretty well schooled by Mayweather in 2013.

It was so one-sided that it’s not something that Canelo will be able to fix with experience and learning new things. Canelo just looked too slow, too clumsy and too non-mobile to deal with Mayweather.

“I would love it [a rematch with Mayweather]. It would interest me,” Canelo said. “I’ve learned more things, there’s more experience.”

A rematch between Mayweather and Canelo would have to take place in either September or early 2016. That means Canelo might have to scrap his plans on fighting WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto in September, and I’m not sure that Canelo will do that.

Canelo has only faced a weight drained Alfredo Angulo and Erislandy Lara since the Mayweather fight. I’m not sure what Canelo could have learned from those fights that would enable him to beat a talented fighter like Mayweather. Canelo appeared to lose to Lara in the minds of many boxing fans.

Canelo didn’t look like he’d improved at all from the Mayweather fight. He only landed 31 head shots in the entire 12 round fight against Lara. The judges gave Canelo the fight off of a handful of body shots he landed. It was controversial and confusing.

If Canelo is to fight Mayweather again, he’ll need to win his fight this Saturday against James Kirkland, and then his September fight, which will likely be Miguel Cotto. If Canelo loses either of those fights, then he’s not going to get another fight against Mayweather.

But even if Canelo fails to get a rematch, he’s poised to become boxing’s No.1 PPV attraction once Mayweather and Pacquiao retire from the sport. However, unless Canelo starts taking on stiff challenges again, he’s not likely to become a PPV star anything like Mayweather and Pacquiao. Instead of bringing in over 1 million PPV buys, Canelo would likely have to settle for around 300,000.

Fighting Miguel Cotto isn’t going to bring the big numbers that Canelo needs to be taken seriously as the replacement for Mayweather and Pacquiao. Canelo is going to need to prove that he can beat Gennady Golovkin, the WBA middleweight champion. I’m not sure if Canelo will ever choose to take that risky fight though, at least not until Golovkin starts getting old and looking shot in my view.



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