Canelo vs. Chavez Jr. official for May 6 – Breaking News!

By Boxing News - 01/13/2017 - Comments

Image: Canelo vs. Chavez Jr. official for May 6 - Breaking News!

By Dan Ambrose: The news is official that Saul Canelo Alvarez (48-1-1, 34 KOs) will be facing former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (50-2-1, 32 KOs) on May 6 on HBO pay-per-view from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Chavez Jr. apparently accepted the offer that was made to him by Golden Boy Promotions. Whether they sweetened the original offer of $7 million or not is the big question.

It’s thought that Canelo-Chavez Jr. will bring in a lot of PPV buys on HBO. That seems to be the name of the game at this point with Golden Boy Promotions – to get a lot of buys for Canelo. If this was about the sport, then Canelo would be fighting Jermall Charlo, Demetrius Andrade or better yet Gennady “GGG” Golovkin. Fighting those guys would actually prove something. Facing Chavez Jr., a fighter that is considered a relic from the past in the eyes of a lot of boxing fans, is little more than another mismatch for Canelo with him facing another aging and arguably over-the-hill fighter. We’ve seen Canelo fight several past their best fighters lately in Amir Khan, James Kirkland and Miguel Cotto. Chavez Jr. fits nicely among that group of aging fighters.

Canelo vs. Chavez Jr. will be a big deal for some boxing fans, most notably Canelo’s fans and the fans of Chavez Jr. However, it’s not a fight involving Canelo facing the best unless he were to be transported back in a time machine to 2012 when Chavez Jr. was still seen as one of the top fighters at 140. That was five years ago, and everthing has changed since then in Chavez Jr’s career. He’s been knocked out by Andrazej Fonfara, and he’s had two very unimpressive performances against 2nd tier fighters Brian Vera and Marcos Reyes. Chavez Jr. looked poor in his comeback fight last December in struggling to beat fringe level fighter Dominik Britsch by a 10 round decision. Both looked terrible, but Chavez Jr. at least made weight for the fight.

You can argue that the Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight isn’t a big fight in terms of Canelo facing a relent fighter with loads of talent. It’s more of a case of Canelo facing another James Kirkland type opponent, who was good in the past, but is no longer relevant today’s boxing world. In other words, this is pretty much the status quo for Canelo and the match-making that’s been done for him since his close call with Erislandy Lara three years ago.