Will Canelo take over for Mayweather as boxing’s No.1 PPV star?

By Boxing News - 09/14/2015 - Comments

1-cotto-canelo-m (9)By Dan Ambrose: Now that superstar Floyd Mayweather Jr. has ended his long 19-year pro career with a win over Andre Berto last Saturday night, Mayweather will be leaving a void that will need to be filled by someone as the sport’s No.1 pay-per-view attraction.

You can’t really say it’s Manny Pacquiao because he’s pretty much finished with his career as well at this point, and we don’t even know whether boxing fans will bother to purchase his remaining fights next year after the disappointing fight between him and Mayweather last May in the “Fight of the Century,” which turned out to be an overpriced dud.

In a recent poll, boxing fans picked out IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin as the fighter most likely to replace Mayweather as boxing’s No.1 pound-for-pound fighter. Canelo was listed far down in the pack. But it’s a much different story when it comes to being the top PPV attraction.

You don’t necessarily need to be seen as the best fighter in the sport to be the top PPV fighter. You just need a huge fan base that wants to see your fights and are willing to pay to see them. With Canelo’s huge built in fan base in the United States, he might be able to take over the top PPV spot from Mayweather without even having to risk his hide fighting Golovkin or any of the dangerous fighters in his old division at junior middleweight like Demetrius Andrade or Jermall Charlo.

Canelo will likely be able to take over the top PPV spot in the sport even if he loses to Miguel Cotto on November 21st and dodges a fight against Golovkin. I don’t think another loss for Canelo will hurt him in terms of his PPV status. Unless Canelo starts losing a lot, and that information eventually filtering down to the casual boxing fans, I don’t see him not becoming boxing’s top PPV seller by next year.

It certainly won’t hurt Canelo if he dodges a fight against Golovkin indefinitely. The casual boxing fans would never find out about Canelo choosing not to fight Golovkin, because they would only know something like that if they followed the sport religiously and were a hardcore fan.

Canelo is in a pretty good spot with his career and his built in fan base. He’s with a good promotional at Golden Boy, and they’re likely going to make sure that Canelo is matched up in winnable fights for him. This probably means no fights against Jermall Charlo, Demetrius Andrade or Golovkin.

I do think Golden Boy will eventually put Canelo in with Golovkin in three to five years when Golovkin is between 36-38 years-old, and no longer the fighter he is right now. It makes sense for Golden Boy to steer Canelo around Golovkin for a long time until he ages nicely and is ready to be beaten. They can always use the excuse that Oscar De La Hoya was talking about in saying that the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight needs more time to be built up properly by waiting.



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