By Patrick McHugh: Former WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (47-1-1, 33 KOs) is expecting a huge crowd for his next fight against unbeaten WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith (23-0-1, 13 KOs) on September 17 at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Canelo says he’s hoping that his September 17th fight against Liam Smith will sellout the 88,000 seat stadium. That number is devoid of reality unfortunately. Hopefully that wasn’t a number that Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya put in his head because it’s just not reality based. This is Texas and the fans aren’t in the dark ages and not aware of high quality or low quality fights. Liam Smith has hand picked written all over him. There’s nothing wrong with the 27-year-old Smith being hand-picked, but you don’t want the young kid Canelo dreaming of the stadium being filled with 88,000 fans either, because it’ll be too much of a let down for him when he gets out there on September 17 and sees the AT&T Stadium looking more or less like a ghost town.
The Canelo-Smith fight will also be televised on HBO pay-per-view live.
Former eight division world champion Manny Pacquiao was able to bring in crowds of 40,000 for his fights against Joshua Clottey and Antonio Margarito in 2010 when the Filipino fighter was at the height of fame.
You can imagine that if Pacquiao tried to fight at the AT&T Stadium now, he’d be lucky if 10,000 fans showed up, especially with the three candidates that his promoter Bob Arum is interested in matching him against for his next fight.
“We’ll see. I hope it will be sold out and 88,000 in the house, but we’ll see,” said Canelo to ringtv.com. “I look forward to finding out and I’ll be very grateful to whoever comes out and shows their support.”
Canelo brought in big crowds in the 30,000 to 40,000 range for his fights in Texas against James Kirkland and Austin Trout in the past. However, those were American fighters from Texas and New Mexico. They brought in their own fans. Liam Smith is from England, and he’ll be lucky if a small handful of his fans make the long trek from that country to fly over to Texas to give him support.
Without help from the fans of a decent opponent, Canelo will be stuck with only his fans coming to support him. It’s very likely that we could see no more than 10,000 to 20,000 fans for such a low profile fight. This is the wrong opponent and the wrong venue. It’s a mistake on Golden Boy’s part to stick this fight in Texas rather than a small setting more fitting for the fight.
“I’ve seen his recent fights. He’s a great fighter,” said Canelo about Liam Smith to IFL TV. “He has everything that it takes to be a great fight. He’s very confident. We’re going to find out on September 17 who’s the better man,” said Canelo.
In speaking about IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, Canelo said, “The negotiations didn’t go through properly, so the fight didn’t happen. The negotiations fell out. It’s going to happen. The negotiations had a lot to do with the WBC organization. The sanctioning body had a lot to do with it. They wanted to put certain fees in the negotiations. They wanted to put a time frame, a deadline. I’m not going to let somebody dictate my negotiations for my fight or my promoter. I had court in Miami. First things first, the negotiations fell out, but my court is more important to me and my personal life,” said Canelo.
“Eventually it’s going to happen, but it didn’t happen this time,” said Canelo about the Golovkin fight. “I’m good. I had to do what I had to do at the time, and I’m okay with it. I’m good right now. All I can say is it’s not good to open your mouth and speak out with negotiation comments, especially what’s going to happen is you’re going to bite your tongue,” said Canelo.
When asked who is going to win the fight between Golovkin and Brook, Canelo said, “We all know what’s going to happen in that fight.”