Canelo to challenge Mayweather for September 12th Mexican Independence Day date

By Boxing News - 05/16/2015 - Comments

Image: Canelo to challenge Mayweather for September 12th Mexican Independence Day dateBy Dan Ambrose: Former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs) plans on challenging boxing’s No.1 pay-per-view attraction Floyd Mayweather Jr. (48-0, 26 KOs) for the Mexican Independence Day date on September 12th, according to his manager/coach Eddy Reynoso.

They don’t have an opponent picked out yet for the 24-year-old Canelo, but Lucas Matthysse and Miguel Cotto are two of the possibilities. Matthysse fights at 140, whereas Canelo is basically a middleweight due to him fighting at 155 recently in the middleweight division, but against junior middleweights.

If Canelo faces little Lucas Matthysse, 5′ 6½″, Canelo would have a 2 ½” height advantage and a near 25 pound weight advantage. Matthysse rehydrates to around 150 in his fights at light welterweight. With Canelo, he rehydrates to the mid-170s. That means that unless Matthysse can put on a ton of weight in a real hurry, he’s going to be out-weighed by Canelo by 25 pounds.

What’s interesting about this is that Canelo and his promoter Oscar De La Hoya say that they’re not fighting WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin because he’s in a different weight division than Canelo, but if they choose Matthysse, who fights in the 140 pound division, it would give Canelo a three division advantage in weight if he chooses to fight Matthysse at 155 like he’s done with his last three opponents. So I guess it is okay to fight smaller guys but not guys that are of equal size to Canelo like Golovkin?

“We are going to fight in September, the truth we already want to important dates, Mexican dates,” Reynoso said via ESPN Deportes. “We’re going to fight in September and look for an interesting fight. We are going to fight on September 12, who, with the best that is available to Saul. We’re going to sit with De la Hoya. We want the big fights, we are already ready to go get the fighters…, the best fighters that are in the category.”

Coto is one of the names that they want, but there’s no guarantee that fight can be made unless Canelo is willing to agree to a purse split that the Puerto Rican star sees as fair given Canelo’s lack of experience. You can’t expect Cotto to agree to a 50-50 split of the revenue or even a 55-45 split with a fighter as young and as inexperienced as Canelo. My guess is it might take a 70-30 split to get the Cotto-Canelo fight made. If Canelo asks for parity, then I don’t see it being made.

Reynoso went on to say that he’s not sure if Canelo’s next fight in September will be on HBO pay-per-view. Canelo was supposed to fight two times a per year on HBO PPV with one of the fights being on regular HBO. Canelo already has the non-PPV fight out of the way in his mismatch against the ring rusty Kirkland. But unless Canelo fights Cotto or another big name like Golovkin, he’s not going to be able to beat out Mayweather for the September date. Canelo’s next fight almost surely will be PPV, but it’s doubtful that the cable distributors will give the green light to Canelo fighting on PPV on the same night as Mayweather, even though they would be on separate cable channels.



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