Canelo vs. Smith – Arlington, TX press conference quotes

By Boxing News - 07/18/2016 - Comments

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By Dan Ambrose: WBO junior middleweight champion Liam “Beefy” Smith (23-0-1, 13 KOs) and challenger Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (47-1-1, 33 KOs) met on Monday for their kickoff press conference at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The two fighters are promoting their September 17 fight the super-sized 80,000 seat AT&T Stadium.

Their fight will be televised by HBO pay-per-view, but it’s a real ask by Golden Boy Promotions to put this fight on PPV because it’s considered a mismatch on paper.

Additionally, Smith, 27, isn’t known to American fight fans, so it’ll be the first time that many of them see him fight. Fights like this are usually on regular HBO if not on free television. For some reason, Golden Boy is making a PPV event. You’ve got to wish them a lot of luck trying to get boxing fans to purchase it.

In looking at the two fighters on stage today, Canelo appeared to be the much heavier of the two. My guess is Canelo is at least 20 pounds heavier than Smith right now. I imagine it’ll stay that way all the way up to the fight on September 17.

“I’m not coming here in awe of him. I’m coming here to win. I’m not coming to make numbers up,” said Smith. “I’m coming here to defend my title. No disrespect, but I’m not a small. over the hill Miguel Cotto, I’m not a blown up 147 like Amir Khan, I’m a big 154 so he’s not going to have to worry about cutting the ring off with me.”

Smith is small in comparison to Canelo no matter what he says. Smith, 5’9 ½”, is roughly the same height as Canelo, but a lot lighter than him in appearance. It would be a huge upset if Smith beats Canelo, because he’s seen as a big underdog in this fight.

“I’m very happy to be back in Texas again at this beautiful stadium,” said Canelo. “I’m going to take this fight seriously and I’m going to prepare well like always. I like to give fight fans a great fight. On September 17th you’ll see a good fight!”

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Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya sees Canelo as the replacement for superstar Floyd Mayweather Jr., who retired recently and is currently no longer active. However, if Mayweather was still around and choosing Liam Smith as an opponent, he’d probably be dealing with a fight that would bring in very PPV buys. This is a fight that won’t likely do well. I don’t think Mayweather would make the move of selecting Liam Smith as an opponent though, because he would reason it out in his head that there would little interest in the fight.