By Tim Fletcher: Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya likes to trumpet his fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs) as the fighter who will take the baton from superstar Floyd Mayweather Jr. (49-0, 26 KOs) and carry the sport on his shoulders for the next 10 years as the No.1 pay-per-view attraction, but that might be the case.
The boxing world is looking for a new No.1 guy to take over for the 38-year-old Mayweather, who announced his retirement after his win over Andre Berto on September 12th.
You can’t considering Manny Pacquiao into the equation because he’s at the end of his career and will likely be hanging up his gloves after 2016.
The candidates to take Mayweather’s No.1 spot are as follows: Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Miguel Cotto, and Sergey Kovalev. Cotto, 34, is near the end of his career as well, and it’s hard to imagine he’ll be able to take the No.1 spot, especially if he chooses to never face Golovkin.
You can’t take the No.1 spot without fighting Golovkin. Kovalev, the IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight division, brings in good ratings for his fight at 175, but he probably fights in the wrong division for him to become the No.1 guy.
In addition to that, Kovalev is plagued by the lack of competition in the light heavyweight division. He can’t get WBC champion Adonis Stevenson to fight him, and the other contenders aren’t well-known enough for him to get to the next level.
Canelo, 25, appears to have reached his zenith in terms of popularity, and doesn’t seem to be gaining any additional boxing fans following his loss to Mayweather in 2013 and his questionable 12 round split decision win over Erislandy Lara in 2014. The fighter that appears to be the front runner to take the lead as the No.1 fighter in the sport is Golovkin.
Golovkin has been knocking everyone out he’s faced for the last 7 years, and he’s becoming more and more popular with each and every fight. But most importantly, Golovkin is already crossover start in the sport, thanks to the clever marketing done by his promoter Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions. With the “Mexican style” slogan that Loeffler has stuck on Golovkin, he’s snatching the Mexican fans and claiming them for himself.
To be sure, Canelo still has a lot of Mexican fans as well, but he’s getting a lot of competition from Golovkin, who is moving in and snatching away a lot of fans with his exciting performances. Canelo hasn’t become a crossover star like Golovkin yet, as Canelo still hasn’t won over the American boxing fans yet.
In his PPV cards that he’s headlined, he’s only brought in around 300,000 PPV buys. It doesn’t help Canelo that he lost to Mayweather and best Austin Trout and Erislandy Lara by questionable decisions, and then failed to give them rematches to clear up the controversy. Further, it also doesn’t help Canelo that Golovkin is seen pushing for a fight against him, and he’s not taking him up on his challenges.
Canelo won’t even commit to fighting Golovkin if he wins the WBC title on November 21st in his fight against WBC 160lb champion Miguel Cotto in their fight on HBO pay-per-view from the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Comments are closed.