Liam Smith’s trainer thinks Mayweather fight is possible

By Boxing News - 09/15/2016 - Comments

Image: Liam Smith’s trainer thinks Mayweather fight is possible

By Scott Gilfoid: Liam Smith’s trainer Joe Gallagher has some crazy visions in his head about a future fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. for Smith if he beats Mexican superstar Saul Canelo Alvarez this Saturday night in their match on HBO pay-per-view at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Gallagher thinks that once Smith whips Canelo, the retired Mayweather will call them up and look to make the fight. It sounds like a pretty farfetched pipe dream if you ask me. It’s not as if Canelo hasn’t already been beaten. We saw him lose to Mayweather already and arguably lose to Erislandy Lara and Austin Trout.

Canelo got some very nice scores from the judges in those fights, but it sure looked to me like he lost both of those fights too. If Smith beats Canelo, I don’t see the victory making him a big enough attraction for Mayweather to come out of retirement. I’m just saying. If Smith beats Canelo, then the only thing I see happening is Oscar De La Hoya, the promoter for Canelo, making sure that they get a rematch against Smith as soon as possible. There’s nothing wrong with that. Smith will still make a ton of money even if it’s not Mayweather he’s facing.

“All we are thinking about is Saul Alvarez, but if we pull this off on Saturday then for the next fight, I’d expect a call from Floyd Mayweather,” said Gallagher to skysports.com. “Floyd will be sitting there watching and think, ‘There’s only two people who have beaten Alvarez; one’s me and one is Liam Smith, so I’ll give him a date for fight number fifty next year. If we win this, there’s a 90 percent chance that the phone will go from Team Mayweather.”

The one major problem with Gallagher’s pipe dream about Mayweather fighting Smith is that the fight wouldn’t be a big enough one to give Mayweather his $100 million asking price for him to come out of retirement. Mayweather has kind of gotten spoiled since getting a tremendous $250 million payday against Filipino star Manny Pacquiao last year, and he wants at least $100 million to come back to the sport of boxing.

I could be wrong, but I don’t think there would be enough interest from the U.S boxing public for Mayweather to get even half of $100 million. I mean, who would buy Mayweather vs. Liam Smith on pay-per-view in the States? Honestly, I don’t think it’s a sellable fight. I believe it would be a smaller fight than Mayweather’s last one against Andre Berto in terms of PPV buys.

Beating Canelo wouldn’t mean anything for Smith, because he’s already been exposed three times in the past. The boxing fans already know that Canelo is a limited fighter in my opinion, and his stock has dropped due to him vacating his WBC middleweight title rather than fighting Gennady Golovkin. Canelo should have taken that fight for better or for worse, but he didn’t.

Now Canelo is fighting a little known world champion in Liam Smith. Nah, I don’t see Mayweather wanting to come out of retirement to fight Liam Smith. I think Mayweather will quickly come to the conclusion that a fight between him and Smith would be DOA in the boxing world. Mayweather would be better off fighting Canelo again, even if he loses the fight to Smith. At least with Canelo, you can count on his huge built in fan base in the U.S purchasing the Mayweather-Canelo rematch. They know who Mayweather is.

The fans don’t know who Liam Smith is in the U.S, and I won’t be surprised if they still don’t know who he is after Saturday’s fight, because I don’t think too many fans are going to purchase the Canelo-Smith fight on HBO PPV. Canelo chose to fight a guy that isn’t recognizable to the casual boxing fans in the U.S by selecting Liam Smith, and the end result of choosing a no name usually means very, very poor PPV numbers.

The fight has failed to make news in the States, and it just looks a failed idea on Golden Boy’s part. They would have been better off if they had selected someone better known for Canelo to fight like Jermall Charlo, because it would be a fight that would sell.

Canelo is in the same boat as Gennady Golovkin was in last Saturday night with his fight against underdog Kell Brook. In other words, Canelo won’t gain anything from beating Smith, because few people outside of the hardcore fans have heard of him.

If Canelo struggles and loses to Smith or just looks bad in winning, it’ll cause his stock to really drop badly in the sport. That’s why it would have been far better for Canelo to take a risky fight against the likes of Jermall Charlo. That guy appears to be the best fighter at 154 right now, and beating him would make Canelo look good. There would be no shame in Canelo struggling to beat Jermall. If Canelo struggles against Liam Smith, the fall is going to be huge for the Mexican star.

Gallagher further says that a win for Smith over Canelo will make him a “superstar in world boxing.”

I don’t think Smith will become a big superstar in the sport if he beats Canelo. A victory over Canelo will make a big name for Smith, but he’ll still need to prove himself against other fighters before he can become a huge superstar. If Smith can keep winning and clean out the 154lb division, then I think he can become a superstar.

For Smith to do that, he’ll need to beat Erislandy Lara, the Charlo brothers, Demetrius Andrade and Julian Williams.

Mayweather seems to be pretty content in retirement. If he does go after win No.50, I suspect he’ll go it against someone with no boxing experience like Conor McGregor. It’ll be a sick mismatch, but enough fans from MMA will be willing to purchase the fight for Mayweather to get his $100 million payday.