By Dan Ambrose: Next week WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) will be meeting with the Golden Boy Promotions executives to try and pick out his next opponent. Canelo, 25, is taking a voluntary defense of his WBC title, and they need someone who is popular enough for him to fight on HBO pay-per-view.
According to bleacherreport.com, Willie Monroe Jr. and Gabriel Rosado are the two top candidates thus far. Golden Boy will continue to look at other fighters as well in the middleweight and junior middleweight divisions. Canelo will be fighting on May 7, on Cinco de Mayo holiday. It’s important for him to pick out a popular enough opponent to get fans interested in purchasing his fight on pay-per-view on HBO.
Monroe and Rosado are good basic fighters, but they’re not pay-per-view fighters by any means. Both have struggled recently in the ring; although Rosado did pick up a fine win last December in beating a smaller and older 38-year-old Joshua Clottey by a 10 round decision.
That was Rosado’s first win since 2012. Since Canelo’s fight will be targeted at the casual boxing fans who have little knowledge of the success of certain fighters, Golden Boy might be able to use a guy like Rosado without the fans protesting. Rosado would make for an interesting fight, and it would give Golden Boy a chance to see how Canelo does against him in comparison to Gennady Golovkin, who stopped Rosado in the 7th round two years ago in 2013.
Rosado did a lot of talking before the Golovkin fight, but when he got in the ring with the Kazakhstan star, he ran from him until being stopped in the 7th. It was not an entertaining fight to watch due to Rosado’s running. He bled all over the black from cuts to both eyes that he suffered. Golovkin was able to bust Rosado up despite all the movement he was using in the fight.
It would be surprise if Golden Boy Promotions decided to pick out an opponent with a big enough name to attract pay-per-view buys for Canelo. That would mean Canelo would need to face someone like Andy Lee, Jermall Charlo, Demetrius Andrade, Miguel Cotto [again], Austin Trout, or Jermell Charlo. Cotto probably isn’t an option because he just lost to Canelo in November in losing a 12 round decision. The Charlo brothers are with Al Haymon, so they’re not likely going to get a shot. Canelo already beat Trout two years ago in a competitive fight. It’s doubtful that Golden Boy will want to give him a shot again.
Andrade is too tall and likely too dangerous for Canelo. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that any of those fighters will get selected by Golden Boy for Canelo. This means that unless Golden Boy looks to the welterweight division for an opponent, we’re probably going to see Rosado or Monroe picked for Canelo to fight. We’re not going to see Canelo fight a super middleweight, even though he would be fighting someone his own weight if he did he take on a 180+ pound fighter in the 168lb division.
Canelo will take a lot of heat from the hardcore boxing community if he selects Rosado or Monroe, because those guys are little more than Golovkin’s leftovers and neither of them are worthy of a PPV fight. Canelo selecting one of those guys is going to give some fans the impression that he’s just out for easy money fights rather than trying to create a real legacy. It was bad enough that Canelo fought James Kirkland last year, a fighter who hadn’t been in the ring for 2 years before that fight. That looked really bad. Kirkland had to lose a ton of weight just to get down to Canelo’s 155lb catch-weight. If Canelo really wants to impress fans and show that he’s a warrior of sorts, he’ll drop the 155lb catch-weight handicap he’s been using for his last four fights and select a dangerous opponent from the middleweight division like Tureano Johnson, Jorge Sebastian Heiland, Andy Lee or Arif Magomedov. Those guys would give Canelo a tough fight, and I think much tougher fight than Monroe or Rosado.
I expect Canelo to take the path of least resistance by facing Monroe next. He was just knocked out by Golovkin last year in a 6th round knockout, so this will give Canelo bragging rights if he can stop him quicker than Golovkin did.
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