By Allan Fox: Golden Boy Promotions president Oscar De La Hoya plans on meeting with former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KOs) to discuss who the 23-year-old fighter should face next following his 12 round split decision win over Erislandy Lara (19-2-2, 12 KO’s) last night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
De La Hoya says that they have several names that they’re looking at for possible opponents for Canelo later in 2015.
The potential opponents – 1. James Kirkland. 2. Miguel Cotto and 3. Floyd Mayweather Jr – have already been leaked, and there’s some potential interesting options. Kirkland is obviously not a great a choice, and it would be a step down from Lara, because Kirkland hasn’t done anything during his career other than beat Alfredo Angulo and Glen Tapia. Kirkland was dominated by Carlos Molina in his controversial 10th round disqualification win over him in 2012. Kirkland has fought only once since that fight.
“Now that Canelo has demonstrated who he is, the drawing power, the star power, we have to sit down and discuss what the future holds for him,” De La Hoya said last night at the post-fight press conference. “So that’s what we’ll do next week. There are several opponents he can face in the near future. So that’s what we’ll be discussing next week.”
The guy that boxing fans want to see Canelo fight is Miguel Cotto next May. However, that’s a fight that could prove difficult to put together given that Cotto is working with Bob Arum of Top Rank. Putting that fight together would depend De La Hoya working with Arum. They supposedly have patched things up between the two companies, so this would be the proving ground.
The fight would also depend on whether Cotto has a contract to have his fights televised exclusively on HBO. If he’s a free agent, which he’s rumored to be, then it’s possible that a fight can be made where Canelo and Cotto fight on Showtime. However, if Arum insists on the fight taking place on HBO, who he’s loyal to, then we probably won’t have a Cotto-Canelo fight anytime soon, if ever. If Arum insists that Canelo fight Cotto on HBO, the fight will probably never happen. At 33, Cotto doesn’t have much more time left in his career.
Canelo-Mayweather II would be a great fight for fans, but it’s unclear whether Canelo and his people will want to get back in the ring with Mayweather at this time. Canelo didn’t show anything last night in his win over Lara that would suggest that the outcome would be any different in a second fight with Mayweather.
Canelo was wide open for shots from Lara all night long, and Lara would have obviously beaten Canelo if he had increased his punch output. Mayweather would stand in the pocket and likely riddle Canelo with shots, and make him look bad like he did last time. While In think De La Hoya likes the money that would come from a second Canelo-Mayweather fight, he’s probably not seeing Mayweather as the first option.
Cotto and Kirkland are the guys that De La Hoya will likely be looking to match Canelo with.
One fighter that likely won’t get the chance to fight Canelo is WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin. He’s unbeaten, very powerful, and easily the best fighter in the middleweight division.
With Canelo weighing in the 170s for almost all of his fights nowadays, he’s exactly the same weight as Golovkin when he enters the ring for his fights. There should be no reason for Canelo not to fight Golovkin, but De La Hoya isn’t too keen about making that fight for obvious reasons.
Comments are closed.