Mayweather-Canelo: Showtime needs this fight more than Mayweather does

By Boxing News - 05/08/2013 - Comments

canelo11By Dan Ambrose: It’s pretty clear that Showtime would love for WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (44-0, 26 KO’s) to fight the heavier WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alavarez (42-0-1, 30 KO’s) in his next fight on September 14th on pay per view.

Steve Kim is right in saying that it’s Showtime that needs this fight much more than Mayweather. He’s got his guaranteed cash and he’s going to make big bank no matter who he faces in his next five fights.

It doesn’t mean anything to Mayweather if he faces an inexperienced 22-year-old Canelo, who would likely go into the fight with a 20 pound weight advantage over him, possibly even more than that.

We’re talking about a junior middleweight, who easily could and probably should be fighting at middleweight or super middleweight. He came into his last fight at 172, so why should Mayweather want to fight a guy that heavy?

There’s also the money issue. Mayweather’s last opponent Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero made $3 million to Mayweather’s $32 million.

Canelo isn’t going to settle for just $3 million. He’s probably going to want to get at least $10 million for fight against Mayweather as a starting figure. Where is that money going to come from?

If you do the math, I don’t think a Mayweather-Canelo fight will generate $42 million. If Showtime/CBS is okay with losing money on the fight then that’s on them, but I don’t think the fight will make sense when it comes to paying for both guys.

With Mayweather’s huge contract, he almost has to fight the less popular guys so that Showtime doesn’t end up having to come up with their own money to pay if the fight fails to bring in big pay per view figures.

Mayweather doesn’t need Canelo; Showtime needs him a lot more, and unless they can get him to melt down to 147 and agree to a strict rehydration clause of 154 lbs, I don’t think the fight should be made.



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