By Dan Ambrose: WBO junior middleweight champion Saul Canelo Alvarez is expected back inside the ring in mid-February 2017 against an opponent still to be determined. Canelo’s fractured right thumb is expected to be healed by that time. Canelo will miss a fight date for this December because of his hand injury that he suffered in his 9th round knockout win over WBO junior middleweight champion Liam “Beefy” Smith on September 17 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. HBO would have shown Canelo’s December fight on regular HBO had he been able to fight.
Besides his fight in February 2017, Canelo will fight in May on Cinco de Mayo and then in September on the Mexican Independence Day holiday. Canelo will take advantage of the Mexican holidays to fight on both of them to bring in pay-per-view buys passively without having to fight anyone good. Canelo vs. Smith is a fight that might not have done as well as it did if it wasn’t on a holiday. The fight brought in 300,000 buys.
The opponents for 2017 are expected to be from this bunch: Billy Joe Saunders, Kell Brook, David Lemieux Danny Garcia, and Gennady Golovkin. The odd man out might be Golovkin, because he’s still dangerous right now and would likely KO Canelo. It’s possible that Golden Boy will choose to go with ONLY non-risky fights for Canelo in 2017.
If Golden Boy can count on 300,000 PPV buys for Canelo each time he fights regardless of the quality of his opponents, then I’m sure they’ll take that route. It won’t do much to increase Canelo’s overall popularity, but it’ll be easy money that Golden Boy can count on. If Golden Boy continues to say that Canelo is a junior middleweight, then they can match him against welterweights like Kell Brook and Danny Garcia in 2017 without him taking as much criticism by the casual boxing fans.
The hardcore fans will obviously see it as a weak move by Canelo and Golden Boy if he faces two welterweights in 2017, but I think they’ll be okay with that, as long as the easy money keeps coming in. Canelo now has the WBO 154lb title after beating Liam Smith. I expect Canelo to hold onto his WBO junior middleweight title rather than giving it up, because it’ll enable him and Golden Boy to say that he’s a 154lb fighter when/if he chooses to fight welterweights Kell Brook and Danny Garcia in 2017. If Canelo gives up the title and moves up to 160 entirely, it’ll look bad if he fights welterweights. Then again it might not matter how much Canelo gets criticized. I think he’s beyond caring at this point.
If Golden Boy chooses not to match Canelo against Golovkin in 2017, then we could see someone like welterweight Danny Garcia pulled up to middleweight to fight Canelo. Garcia revealed on Thursday that he’d like to fight Canelo after he gets his fights against Samuel Vargas and Keith Thurman out of the way. Garcia will be fighting Thurman in the first quarter of 2017. Even if Garcia loses to Thurman, he still would have a good chance of getting the fight against Canelo.
If Canelo fights Billy Joe Saunders, Kell Brook and Danny Garcia in 2017, he’ll have three easy paydays. That would get Canelo through the year. In 2018, Canelo would be looking at guys like Lemieux, Gabriel Rosado and Golovkin if he’s aged enough to be beatable and/or accept a flat fee of eight figures. I think the flat fee is going to be something that Golden Boy is going to insist on if Golovkin wants to fight Canelo. I don’t think they’re going to give Golovkin a percentage split for a fight against Canelo, ever.
Golovkin isn’t in the position to ask for a percentage split like Miguel Cotto, because he’s never proven himself to be a PPV fighter. This will enable Golden Boy to offer flat fees only, because they can argue that Golovkin hasn’t proven himself as a PPV draw. Golovkin’s only fight on PPV was against Lemieux last year in October, and that fight drew a little over 100,000 buys. That’s pretty good for a foreign fighter that has only been fighting in the U.S for a short period of time.
Golovkin didn’t have the advantage of a built in fan base of millions upon millions, and he didn’t have the advantage of getting fights against Floyd Mayweather Jr., Miguel Cotto and Shane Mosley. If the Canelo-Golovkin fight is pushed into the future, then it helps Canelo and hurts Golovkin, especially when it comes to him getting a percentage split of the revenue. If Golovkin loses to someone while Canelo keeps winning, it’ll give Golden Boy an excuse for not giving Golovkin a percentage split. With Canelo taking easier opponents than Golovkin, it makes it unlikely that he’ll get beaten in the next few years. Golovkin is willing to take the dangerous opponents like Daniel Jacobs and Gilberto Mendoza. There’s more risk for Golovkin than Canelo.