By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy promoter Oscar De La Hoya has recently said he’s not pulling for either fighter in the September 14th mega fight between Golden Boy fighter WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-0-1, 30 KO’s) and mega star Floyd Mayweather Jr. (44-0, 26 KO’s), but that’s not keeping De La Hoya from telling the boxing world who he thinks is going to win that fight.
De La Hoya believes that the 22-year-old Canelo will absolutely, 100% beat the 36-year-old Mayweather when the two meet at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
De La Hoya said this to Nacion VIP [ESPN] when asked what is the chances of Canelo beating Mayweather, “If I was going from 1 to 10, I’d give a 10.”
When one of the guests asked De La Hoya why Mayweather is taking the fight if he can’t win, De La Hoya said “Because it’s Money May; it’s a lot of money.”
So De La Hoya thinks Mayweather is just taking the fight for the money and that he doesn’t have a chance to win the fight. That’s pretty incredible, especially if you’ve had the chance to see Canelo’s last fight against Austin Trout last April.
In looking at how gassed out and poor Canelo looked in winning a controversial decision aided by the WBC’s open scoring for that fight, it’s hard to see Canelo doing anything other than losing to Mayweather on September 14th. Even if Canelo has a 15 to 20 pound weight advantage for this fight, I see him losing the fight and losing badly.
The WBC’s use of the open scoring helped Canelo because when the wide scores by two of the judges were announced after the 4th and 8th rounds, Canelo basically didn’t have to do much of anything to coast the rest of the fight.
I had Canelo losing most of all the first six rounds because he wasn’t throwing enough punches, but in the second half when Canelo looked gassed out, I had Trout winning almost all of the remaining rounds apart from the 7th round.
The open scoring really helped Canelo in that fight because the wide scores by the two judges forced Trout to change his fighting style and become a slugger, and that’s not what he is.
Trout is a boxer, but seeing how these judges had Canelo way up in the fight on the scores, Trout was forced to become something he’s not. That made the fight easier for Canelo than it would have been. However, I still think Trout did more than enough to get the decision.
Golden Boy really needs Canelo to win this fight because it’ll make him a star and likely a huge pay per view attraction on par with Mayweather. If Canelo can become a PPV star at 23, he would be a huge money fighter for Golden Boy and would help the company for many years to come before he’s finally beaten enough to where he’d no longer be a PPV attraction or if he chooses to retire.
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