By Dan Ambrose: Former WBA/WBC Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs) and his manager Eddy Reynoso are insisting that they’ll be fighting on the Mexican Independence Day holiday on September 12th, with or without WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (40-4, 33 KOs) in a fight that would be televised on HBO PPV. That’s the date that the 24-year-old Canelo wants, and if Cotto isn’t willing to agree to fight him on that date, Canelo and Reynoso will look to plans B or C.
In other words, Canelo seems to be coming from a place where he’s calling the shots by setting the boundaries for a fight between him and Cotto. If Cotto wants to fight him, he’ll have to agree to fight him on the Mexican Independence Day holiday on September 12th.
Here’s the tricky part; if Cotto agrees to fight Canelo on the date that the Mexican fighter wants, he’ll be competing with superstar Floyd Mayweather Jr., who will be fighting on Showtime on the same night. Mayweather gets big money even if he doesn’t bring in a lot of PPV buys due to his Showtime contract. But Canelo and Cotto aren’t in the same situation.
They need the PPV buys for them to make good money, which is why it seems self-defeating that Canelo is insisting that he fight on September 12th. The smart thing would be for Canelo to give the date to Mayweather, and wait until he retires before trying to take the Mexican holiday dates in May and September of every year. Right now, Canelo doesn’t have the clout and the popularity to take those dates from Mayweather. If he tries to compete with him, Canelo will only be hurting himself, and in this case, Cotto as well.
“Since we [Canelo] went once and will not be repeated. Saul will fight on September 12 and if Mayweather wants the same date on, there will be the winner in the PPV events,” Reynoso said via sdpnoticias. “Saul has several options, but the fight with Cotto would be very interesting. Hopefully we can take that confrontation. That would be ideal, but just in case we have plans B and C.”
Canelo and Reynoso better start looking for their plan B and C, because I don’t see Cotto agreeing to some crazy thing like that with Canelo calling the shots by selecting the date, and saying they’ll compete with Mayweather’s fight on a separate network on the same night. That’s just bad business. Hopefully, Canelo’s plan-B is Gennady Golovkin, although I seriously doubt it because Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya has already said that he’s not going to let Canelo fight Golovkin for two more years.
It’s kind of strange how De La Hoya came up with that number, as he believes that the Canelo-Golovkin fight will be big enough by that time for him to let Canelo take the fight. But it also coincides with Golovkin being 35-years-old by then, and likely not the same fighter he is now. It would be interesting if some up and coming fighter takes the stance with Canelo someday by saying he won’t fight him until Canelo is 35.
If Canelo is going to give Cotto a take it or leave it options in the future of him having to agree to fight on one of the two Mexican holidays every year, then I don’t see the Canelo vs. Cotto fight ever taking place. The date doesn’t benefit Cotto. He’s not Mexican. It helps Canelo, but they should be looking to fight on a neutral date rather than trying to insist that Cotto, a proud Puerto Rican fighter, to fight on Mexican holiday so that Canelo will be happy.
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