By Dan Ambrose: Having beaten yet another soft touch dug up for him by his promoters at Golden Boy, the 22-year-old WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (41-0-1, 30 KO’s) will now take eight months off from the ring and won’t fight again until May 4th of next, at which time Alvarez expects to be matched up with one of the fighters that he’s told Golden Boy that he wants for this date.
Alvarez is insisting on fighting one of the big names despite the fact that he’s not faced the best contenders at junior middleweight to really prove himself worthy of fighting anyone. For the May 4th date, which is the Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo, Alvarez wants Floyd Mayweather Jr, Miguel Cotto or Sergio Martinez.
Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer told the Latimes.com “[Alvarez] came at me like a pistol,” in stating who he wants to fight on May 4th.
That’s a long time for such a young fighter to be out of the ring. Schaefer wanted to get Alvarez back in the ring for December, but Alvarez said no to that and will be sitting and waiting for the May 4th fight date. Alvarez could end up hurting his own career if he’s going to start early with taking extended periods of time off before he’s even developed his game and won over boxing fans.
Alvarez still isn’t well known in the United States, and it’s not exactly the smartest move for him to be skipping fights like this. But you can kind of understand it when you factor in that he would have had to fight a good junior middleweight contender if he had fought in December. Golden Boy couldn’t have trotted out another welterweight like Matthew Hatton, Alfonso Gomez, and Josesito Lopez for Alvarez to fight again, because it’s getting old that he’s fighting smaller guys instead of junior middleweights.
Alvarez might not be happy if Golden Boy gets none of the guys on his list. He can already forget about Mayweather and Sergio Martinez. Those guys won’t take that fight, especially against and unproven fighter who hasn’t even fought the top contenders in his division in Erislandy Lara and Vanes Martirosyan. The only option that Alvarez has is Miguel Cotto, and that’s not a good option at all, unless Alvarez is cool with fighting Cotto off of two consecutive losses.
Cotto has already been beaten by Floyd Mayweather Jr. last May, and in December, Cotto will be fighting WBA Word junior middleweight champion Austin Trout, and I expect Cotto to lose that fight as well. Somehow, it won’t be nearly as interesting Alvarez fighting Cotto with him coming into the fight with consecutive losses. I suspect Cotto won’t take the fight anyway if he loses to Trout, because his career will be on the verge of collapse and it’ll be insane for him to take that fight. So, what we could be seeing Alvarez fight on May 4th next year is none of the above. Golden Boy will have to dig up another opponent for Alvarez, and I suspect that they’ll make a hard play for James Kirkland or if he’s not available, look for another welterweight.
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