By Dan Ambrose: Former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (50-2-1, 32 KOs) is reportedly not pleased with the purse demands from Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in the negotiations between them for a fight on May 6. According to Fight News, Canelo wants five times more than Chavez Jr. for the fight, and he feels that’s too much.
The 30-year-old Chavez Jr. is willing to let Canelo take a bigger cut of the revenue, but he feels that he’s been excessive in what he wants for his purse in comparison to his own.
Chavez Jr. said this via Fightnews.com about his negotiations with Canelo:
“We agreed to less money, but not these excessive childish whims,” said Chavez Jr. “We’re going to do things professionally and correctly, otherwise there’s no sense to give importance or grow the egos of people.”
Chavez Jr. was recently offered a $5 million guaranteed purse for the Canelo fight. If Canelo is going to be getting 5 times more than Chavez Jr. for the fight, then it means his guaranteed purse will be $25 million. With that much going to Canelo, it’s not going to leave much of an upside for Chavez Jr. to get more than the $5 million for the fight unless it brings in a massive amount of PPV buys.
I don’t know that it will. Chavez Jr. has been invisible to a lot of the casual boxing fans for many years. It’s almost five years since Chavez Jr. was an active fighter fighting on a frequent basis. Some fans might be interested in paying to see Canelo fight Chavez Jr., but probably not enough for the fight to bring in tremendous numbers. If Canelo is going to get a five times more than Chavez Jr, it means there is not going to be much left over for Chavez Jr. for a percentage of the PPV revenue.
Chavez Jr. agreed to fight Canelo at a catchweight of 165 pounds. Chavez Jr. will need to come down in weight three pounds from the 168lb division that he’s currently fighting at. That part of the deal sounds like a fair one. Canelo has to move up in weight from 154, where he recently won the WBO junior middleweight title. Some boxing fans believe Canelo to be fighter that rehydrates into the 180s for his fights.
Canelo’s weights the night of his fights are no longer reported by HBO during his fights. Some boxing fans believe that Canelo is a fighter that is just very good at cutting weight and putting a ton of back on to gain an advantage over his opponents. If Canelo is going to rehydrate into the 180s, then Chavez Jr. won’t have much of any weight advantage over him.
You can argue that Chavez Jr. deserves a 60-40 split of the revenue for the Canelo fight. If Canelo normally brings in 300,000 buys on HBO PPV when fighting his normal opponents like Liam Smith, then it makes sense to give Chavez Jr. a fair split if he’s going to be able to help bring in over 1 million buys. That’s an extra 700,000 buys that Canelo wouldn’t be getting if he were facing a less popular fighter like Liam Smith.
Without Chavez Jr, Canelo would be stuck fighting someone who can’t bring in PPV buys. With Chavez Jr, he brings in a ton of buys. It’s up to Canelo and his promoters at Golden Boy if they want the fight badly enough against Chavez Jr. Without this fight, then Canelo will wind up facing WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders on Cinco de Mayo on May 6. Saunders is not well-known to the casual boxing fans in the States. He’s like another Liam Smith. So, Canelo would be getting another 300,000 buys for the fight against Saunders.
I don’t think that’s a worthwhile fight for Canelo. Few fans will care if he wins the WBO middleweight title off Saunders. If the idea is to win the WBO title, and then try and use the belt for leverage to get a bigger cut of the revenue against Gennady Golovkin, then I think it might backfire on Canelo. Golovkin might not be willing to take the much smaller money either.
Canelo is likely used to getting considerably more money than his opponents. Canelo has likely been the A-side in his fights or much of his career with perhaps the exception in his fights against Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Miguel Cotto. Chavez Jr. is in a bad position to be negotiating with Canelo, because he’s not been all that active with his own boxing career since 2012.
Chavez Jr. lost to Sergio Martinez by a 12 round unanimous decision in a fight on HBO PPV on September 15, 2012. The fight brought in 475,000 pay-per-view buys on HBO. The fight showed that Chavez Jr. could bring in a lot of buys. However, Chavez Jr. tested positive for cannabis in the aftermath of the fight, and he was subsequently suspended by the Nevada State Athletic Commission for nine months. After the suspension expired, Chavez Jr. resumed his career one-year later against journeyman Brian Vera in winning a controversial 10 round decision in September 2013.
Chavez Jr. ended up fighting Vera in a rematch and beating him. Chavez Jr. followed that up with a 9th round stoppage loss to Andrzej Fonfara, and wins over Marcos Reyes and most recently Dominik Britsch. The problem that Chavez Jr. has had is he’s not been active enough to rebuild his career in a proper way that he needed to after his loss to Sergio Martinez. Instead of the defeat being a minor setback for a young fighter, it became a major one for Chavez Jr. due to him disappearing for long stretches of time, and not coming into his fights in the best of shape.
The Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight is perceived to be a mismatch by fans. Canelo and Golden Boy want Chavez Jr. for his name. He’s a good scalp for Canelo, because he’s recognized by a lot of fans. At the same time, Chavez Jr. isn’t much of a threat to beating Canelo, so it’s another safe fight for him. But if Golden Boy wants Chavez Jr’s scalp for Canelo, it appears they’re going to need to pay him a decent purse to get him to agree to the fight.