By Dan Ambrose: In a match-up in keeping with the kinds of opponents that WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez (40-0-1, 29 KO’s) has been fighting his entire seven-year pro career, 38-year-old former two division world champion Ricardo Mayorga (29-8-1, 23 KO’s) is reportedly being considered for Canelo Alvarez’s September 15th fight on Showtime, according to Fighthype.com.
There’s also a chance that the fight will be televised on CBS. Why they would want to televise a fight as awful as this one is anyone’s guess. I’m just wondering how the World Boxing Council and Showtime would agree to to this fight. If I’m working for Showtime, I would say no immediately to the idea of televising this bout if Golden Boy Promotions brought it up. Mayorga was a good fighter 10 years ago, but he’s done very little since losing to Cory Spinks in 2003.
Mayorga hasn’t fought since last year in March when he was stopped in the 12th round by WBA World junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto. Mayorga is not ranked in the top 15 in the junior middleweight division, although I could see the WBC changing that in a heartbeat by suddenly pumping him to the #1 spot based on nothing. Sad, but true.
The positive to having Alvarez fight Mayorga is that he’s not a threat to beating him like Erislandy Lara would be. Mayorga would do a good job of promoting the fight by insulting Alvarez like mad during their press conferences and probably easily getting the better of him. In terms of showmanship and arguing ability, it would be like man against boy. Mayorga is a much better trash talker than Alvarez, and he’s got better charisma as well. However, he can’t fight at a high level anymore and the bout would be a mismatch. It would be interesting for three or four rounds, but after that it would be all Alvarez.
It would be disappointing to see Alvarez matched against Mayorga because Alvarez is a champion and he really needs to start facing world class opposition. He won the title against a welterweight in Matthew Hatton rather than a ranked junior middleweight. I still don’t understand how the WBC let that happen. Alvarez has defended the title four times beating Ryan Rhodes, Alfonso Gomez, Kermit Cintron and 40-year-old Shane Mosley. Those were all weak opponents, and boxing fans have been hoping that Alvarez would finally face someone good or at least marginally good like Cornelius Bundrage at the minimum. But it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. I think an Alvarez-Mayorga fight would be the equivalent of Tomasz Adamek vs. James Toney. A terrible mismatch and a joke of a fight. It would make it seem like Alvarez is being protected by Golden Boy despite the fact that he’s holding a world title and should be facing the best fighters now.
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