By Chris Williams: Bob Arum of Top Rank is hoping to get Golden Boy Promotions’ No.1 fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez for a fight against his fighter Manny Pacquiao, the WBO welterweight belt holder, for 2015. Arum wants to wait until after he’s matched Pacquiao up against 40-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez for a fifth time in November. Arum thinks a 5th Pacquiao-Marquez fight will be a huge hit with the fans of the long series.
“Maybe sometime next year,” Arum said to abs-cbnnews.com about a potential fight between Pacquiao and the 23-year-old Canelo.
I think it would be better for Canelo to wait until Pacquiao proved that he can still bring in the PPV buys before takes a fight with him, because his numbers have been deteriorating lately. Unless Pacquiao is able to show that he brings something to the table, I don’t think it would be a good fight for Golden Boy to make right now. They’ve got the a golden star in Canelo, and they don’t need to put him in a situation where he’s facing a fighter on the decline in terms of PPV numbers. Pacquiao is also nearing 40, and the upside in fighting him isn’t what it once was back in 2009. Canelo would be someone that would help raise Pacquiao’s numbers singlehandedly.
Canelo has nothing to gain in fighting someone as old and as small as Pacquiao. If Canelo whips Pacquiao, they’ll say he was supposed to because of how much older and smaller Pacquiao is than him. If Canelo struggles to beat him or loses to him then his career takes a major hit that he might not be able to ever recover from. I think Canelo would knock Pacquiao out depending on what kind of catch-weight was required of him. But he wouldn’t get the praise for having knocked Pacquiao out because of his size and youth advantage.
Golden Boy needs to send over some of there other fighters like Amir Khan or Lucas Matthysse to fight Pacquiao next year. Having Arum get the best of the bunch with Canelo isn’t a good thing right now given Pacquiao’s drop off in numbers. Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy needs to offer up Khan or Matthysse to Arum. If that’s not good enough then so be it. Maybe Arum would say yes to a Khan or Matthysse vs. Tim Bradley fight.
Canelo would be better off fighting the likes of the Sergio Martinez vs. Miguel Cotto winner or going after a rematch with Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2015 rather than fighting Pacquiao. A Pacquiao-Canelo fight isn’t really worth it for Canelo because he can make more money fighting Mayweather than he can Pacquiao.
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