By Dan Ambrose: The word is that WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez will likely fight on the May 4th Floyd Mayweather Jr. fight card as part of a deal to get a fight against Mayweather on September 14th. What’s unknown at this point is who Alvarez’s promoters at Golden Boy will match him against for the May 4th date.
While hardcore boxing fans overwhelmingly want to see Canelo finally prove that he’s not just hype by taking on WBA junior middleweight champion Austin Trout in a unification bout, it’s very possible that Golden Boy will protect what Trout refers to as their “Golden Goose” by matching Canelo against another weak opponent.
In that case, Canelo won’t be doing much to get the fight with Mayweather other than fighting on his undercard on May 4th to attract more pay per view buys from his own Mexican fan base. The question is do the casual boxing fans really care who Canelo fights on May 4th?
Does it matter to the fans if Canelo fights a good fighter like Austin Trout or will they be satisfied to see Canelo fight another light welterweight or welterweight of marginal talent and old age? Is it just about Canelo’s popularity more than what he’s actually doing in the ring in terms of not fighting the best?
It’s going to be interesting to see who Golden Boy matches Canelo up against because the reality is casual boxing fans probably don’t care if Canelo fights anyone good. They just want to see Canelo win and look good winning. Golden Boy can probably find another welterweight to put in with Canelo and the casual fans won’t have a clue that it’s not a top 154 pounder and they’ll be impressed to watch Canelo bludgeon the poor sap into submission.
The issue putting Canelo in with Trout is that Canelo might actually lose the fight. It’s a competitive fight instead of the standard mismatch going in the door like all over Canelo’s past fights have been. He hasn’t had one fight yet that wasn’t considered a mismatch before the fight started.
If Canelo were to be matched against Trout, it would be the first time where there would be an unknown outcome. Given that Golden Boy is trying to turn Canelo into a stand-alone head of the head of the bill PPV attraction, will they be willing to put Canelo in with someone that can possibly beat him like Trout? I don’t think so. Trout has said himself that he still hasn’t been contacted about the fight, so it’s not looking like Golden Boy is going to be taking any risks with him.
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