By Dan Ambrose: Now that Victor Ortiz has ruined his chance at a fight against Saul Alvarez by quitting on his stool last night in Los Angeles in his loss to Josesito Lopez, Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer is trying his best to salvage a September 15th pay-per-view bout headlined by one of his newest starts WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez.
Schaefer told RingTV that he still wants the fight to a PPV bout, but that they’re going to need to find a big enough name for the bout to be worthy of being a fight that boxing fans will pay for. If they can’t find a big name, Schaefer will move the Alvarez fight to a non-PPV bout on Showtime.
The names mentioned as possible opponents for Alvarez are less than PPV worthy, however. The names are as follows: Cornelius Bundrage, Josesito Lopez, Carlos Quintana, Austin Trout and Vanes Martirosyan. None of them would interest casual boxing fans in big numbers to watch Alvarez fight despite both Trout and Martirosyan having unbeaten records, albeit against no name opposition.
Schaefer says he does have one “Wildcard” opponent that he’s trying to sign on for the Alvarez fight, and if he can get this fighter then he’ll go ahead and put the fight on PPV. Obviously it isn’t any of the aforementioned names because boxing fans won’t buy a bout between Alvarez and any of those guys. They’d be lucky to get 50,000 PPV buys if Alvarez faces ay of them.
The only fighter I can think of is Miguel Cotto, because there aren’t any big names in the junior middleweight division besides him, and Golden Boy isn’t going to let Alvarez face a middleweight. There isn’t anyone at welterweight that can fight Alvarez that boxing fans would be eager to see. Floyd Mayweather Jr. won’t be available and Amir Khan would never moved up two divisions and face a puncher like Alvarez.
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