(Photo credit: Martin McNeil – HoganPhotos/Golden Boy Promotions) By Dan Ambrose: Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) will begin the process of selling their May 7 fight this week, as they begin their three-city press tour on Monday in London, UK. Khan and Canelo will be fighting on HBO pay-per-view at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
With the attention their fight has received thus far, it won’t take much to boxing fans to purchase the fight. The Canelo-Khan fight has easily surpassed the Manny Pacquiao vs. Tim Bradley 3 fight attention in the media.
The fans appear to be much more interested in the Canelo-Khan fight than they are the Pacquiao-Bradley fight. One reason for this is because Canelo and Khan haven’t fought each other twice in the past like Pacquiao and Bradley. There’s some actual mystery involved with the Canelo-Khan fight that isn’t there with the played-out Pacquiao-Bradley fight.
Canelo-Khan will be in London on Monday, February 29, and in New York on Tuesday, March 1, and then in Los Angeles on Wednesday, March 2. It’s a lot of flying in a short period of time for the fighters, and you can imagine they’ll be a little worn out by the time they wrap up their three-city international tour this week.
The boxing public will be allowed to attend all three tour dates, which is a good thing for them and for the event. Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya believes the Canelo-Khan fight will eclipse the 900,000 PPV buys the Canelo vs. Miguel Cotto fight brought in last November on HBO.
London! 🇬🇧 See you tomorrow! #CaneloKhan #PressTour pic.twitter.com/OJCafWowTZ
— GoldenBoyPromotions (@GoldenBoyBoxing) February 28, 2016
However, for it to do that, Golden Boy is going to need to let the casual boxing fans know about the fight. They can’t just expect people to find out by word of mouth. They’re going to need to market it, spend money, and let the fighters get interviewed. Canelo doesn’t give a lot of interviews, and that’s something he’s going to need to start doing if he wants to sell this fight.
Canelo will be putting his WBC middleweight title on the line in a catch-weight of 155lbs against Khan. We could see Canelo march into the ring at least 15 pounds heavier than Khan by the time they meet on May 7. Khan says he’s going to be fighting at 165lbs, but you can bet that Canelo will be close to 180 by the time he finishes rehydrating. That’ll give Canelo a nice 15lb weight advantage. If Canelo rehydrates to 185, then Khan is going to have real problems, because he’ll need to stay on the move literally all night long for him to have a chance of making it through the full fight without getting knocked out.
Khan has obviously been selected by Golden Boy because they feel confident that Canelo will be able to beat him. Never the less, it won’t be surprising if Khan pulls off an upset here. Canelo was almost beaten by Austin Trout and Erislandy Lara in the past. If those guys almost beat Canelo, then Khan has a real chance in this fight. Floyd Mayweather Jr. beat Canelo in 2013, and all he did was jab and throw pot shot right hands. There was nothing magical about what Mayweather did to get that win. He pot shotted and made sure he used a little movement to keep from getting battered by the heavier Canelo.
This is a big opportunity for Khan to become a superstar overnight. All he needs to do is beat Canelo, and he’ll have established himself as a star. Unfortunately, it’s easier said than done. Khan will need to keep from getting bludgeoned by the much bigger and stronger Canelo for him to pull off the upset. It’s possible, but it’s going to be awfully hard for Khan to do this. His track record suggests that he won’t be able to win this fight. Khan has been knocked out by guys in the past that Canelo would blast apart with no problems in Danny Garcia and Breidis Prescott. Khan even had problems in his last fight against Chris Algieri. This is another guy that Canelo would have an easy time beating.
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