By Dan Ambrose: WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez (39-0-1, 29 KO’s) is counting on being able to get by 40-year-old Shane Mosley (46-7, 39 KO’s) on May 5th and then take on the winner of the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Miguel Cotto fight, which just happens to be the main event on the May 5th card at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Alvarez supposedly had an agreement to fight Mayweather if he beats Cotto, but Mayweather hasn’t said anything about facing Alvarez after the Cotto fight so you have wonder.
Alvarez said this about wanting to fight Cotto or Mayweather next at the recent press conference: “They are both the best. I want to fight either one.”
It’s almost a given that the 21-year-old Alvarez will get past the 40-year-old Mosley in an impressive fashion on May 5th, because Mosley hasn’t looked even slightly good since beating Antonio Margarito in 2009. Mosley has fought three times since then and has looked like only a fraction of the fighter he once was in his prime. His work rate is down, his hand-speed, his timing off and his accuracy not there. Alvarez will have a relatively easy time winning this fight if Mosley looks as bad as he did in his last three fights when he faces Alvarez in Las Vegas.
Alvarez doesn’t have a lot of big fight options for him once he gets past Mosley. If he can’t get a fight against Mayweather or Cotto, he may have to take a dangerous fight against top contenders James Kirkland or Vanes Martirosyan, are ranked at the top by the WBC. There’s no telling how Alvarez will do against either of them because he’s been matched so carefully since picking up the World Boxing Council belt last year. He’s fought Ryan Rhodes, Alfonso Gomez and Kermit Cintron and beat all of them by knockout. However, Kirkland and Martirosyan are better fighters than those guys and they could give Alvarez a lot of problems. It’s likely that Golden Boy will choose to steer Alvarez around those guys and look for another old lion to put him in with, but there’s going to come a time very soon where Alvarez won’t have any choice in the matter; he’ll have to fight one of them at some point or risk getting stripped.
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