Why is Canelo still draining himself to stay at 154?

By Boxing News - 12/02/2016 - Comments

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By Dan Ambrose: Earlier on Friday, Golden Boy Promotions president Eric Gomez revealed the news that Saul Canelo Alvarez could be staying t junior middleeight for at least one more fight in early 2017 before moving up to 160 to start campaigning at middleweight. For a lot of boxing fans, they feel that Canelo should have made the move up to middleweight ages ago considering how heavy he looks. Is Canelo draining down to 154 so that he can rehydrate into the 170s to have a big weight advantage over his opponents in the junior middleweight division? Is Canelo denyhdrating to 154 to have an excuse for why he doesn’t have to fight middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin? I don’t think the boxing fans believe that Canelo is a natural 154lb. fighter. They see how big he is and they wonder why he’s not fighting at the full weight for the middleweight division yet.

The fans don’t for certain how much the 26-year-old Canelo weighs anymore for his fights, because he’s no longer being weighed by HBO on the night of his fights for some reason. Some fans guess that Canelo is rehydrating now into the 180s, while others see him as coming in around 175.

Needless to say, it’s hard to understand why Canelo wants to remain at 154 for one more fight when he’s already beaten arguably the weakest of the junior middleweight champions in Liam Smith last September in taking the British fighters WBO 154lb division. The only guys remaining at the top of the division are quality fighters like Demetrius Andrade, Julian Williams and Erislandy Lara.

So the question is will Canelo fight any of those guys for his next fight or will he take an easy mark like the ones he’s been fighting recently?

“We’re not rushing anything. There’s enough time. Canelo is a very, very disciplined fighter,” said Gomez to RingTV.com about Canelo’s next fight in early 2017. “He stays in shape. He’s going to be in shape. If we want to fight in the first quarter, then that is available. If he wants to wait until May, that will happen as well. It’s going to be touch-and-go until late December.”

It’s got to be tough for Canelo to melt down in weight to get to 154. If Canelo is rehydrating to the mid-170s, we’re talking 20lbs of water weight. That’s a lot of weight. Canelo can get away with that if he’s going to fighting another mediocre junior middleweight like in his last fight, but the boxing fans want to see Canelo fight a real top guy and not a guy with inflated ranking.

Canelo will look bad if he picks out someone like Antonio Margarito, who is no longer relevant. Canelo will also look bad if he fights at 155lbs again, because he’s been perched at that weight for some time now. Some boxing fans are calling 155 the “Canelo division.” It’s kind of sad, because we hear about Canelo wanting to make a mark in the sport in being one of the best, and yet he keeps fighting at 155 and making a different kind of mark. If that’s what Canelo is going to remembered for in fighting at catchweights, then it’s going to be a disappointing legacy if you ask me.

Since the chances of Golden Boy matching Canelo up against one of the dangerous contenders or champions at 154 are quite low, I think he’s better off moving up to 160 in early 2017. Canelo can fight WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders in February. That’s the perfect fight for that time, because Saunders would be a terrible choice to fight on HBO pay-per-view in May.

That would be another Liam Smith type fight if Canelo were to fight the little known Saunders on HBO PPV in front of the U.S. Saunders is known in the UK alright, but he’s not known by CASUAL fans in the U.S. If Canelo and Golden Boy want another PPV fight that brings in only 300,000 buys, then Saunders is your guy. The casual fans won’t care that Saunders is one of the many champions in boxing.

There’s too many champions, and it’s lost it’s meaning already to be called a champion. The only way the fans get excited about a fight between Canelo and another fighter is if they’ve heard and seen that fighter before. Saunders blew his chance to be seen by the U.S fans when he opted not to fight Gabriel Rosado on the underacard of the Canelo vs. Liam Smith card on September 17 on HBO PPV from the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Golden Boy offered Saunders a fight against Rosado, and he turned it down reportedly. Canelo needs to fight Saunders in February on regular HBO, and then former IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux in May on HBO PPV. Canelo would be making a defense of his WBO title by that point against Lemieux, and the fight might do decent numbers on PPV. But best of all, Canelo will get a chance to show the boxing world how much more popular he is compared to Golovkin if his fight against Lemieux brings in good numbers on PPV.

Golovkin fought Lemieux last year in October 2015 on HBO PPV, and the fight brought in reportedly low PPV numbers. If Canelo can at least bring in 300,000 buys, Golden Boy can use those figures to justify taking the lion’s share of the revenue in a fight against Golovkin. They’re already going to ask for the lion’s share of the revenue, but if Canelo has the WBO title in his possession and good PPV numbers for his fight against Lemieux, then he can use that information to try and get an even purse split in Canelo’s favor for the fight.

Golden Boy obviously can’t offer Golovkin peanuts for the Canelo fight, because he’ll walk away and fight someone else. The negotiations are likely going to favor Canelo to the extreme as it is with Golden Boy likely picking a venue that greatly favors Canelo like someplace in Texas.