By Dan Ambrose: Floyd Mayweather Jr. (42-0, 26 KO’s) is expected to make an announcement for his next fight on May 5th as early as Saturday. It had been hoped that Mayweather would be fighting Manny Pacquiao.
However, due to the number of obstacles that in the way of that fight being put together, Mayweather will have to go in a different direction and will likely pick WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez (39-0-1, 29 KO’s) to fight on May 5th in order to take advantage of his popularity among Mexican boxing fans and to help attract a lot of boxing fans to purchase the fight on pay per view. May 5th is Cinco de Mayo, so it’s kind if necessary that Mayweather choose a Mexican fighter for that date if he can’t line up a mega fight with Pacquiao.
WBC president Jose Sulaiman likes the idea of Mayweather fighting Alvarez and believes that he’ll give Mayweather a lot of problems in this fight.
Sulaiman told the Manila Standard “I don’t believe that he would beat Mayweather because that is foolish. Mayweather is a great fighter and has never lost. But I believe there are very few fighters who could give Mayweather the kind of fight that Canelo can.”
Alvarez would have a better chance at beating Mayweather I he had fought some halfway decent fighters in the past couple of years, but he’s been kept under wraps by Golden Boy and mostly fed soft opponents to keep him winning. In Alvarez’s last five fights, he’s beaten Lovemore N’dou, Matthew Hatton, Ryan Rhodes, Alfonso Gomez and Kermit Cintron. None of those fighters are even approaching the kind of talent that Mayweather has and this is going to be an issue for Alvarez if he gets picked by Mayweather. Facing weak opposition can’t have helped Alvarez’s skills any.
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