By Tim Fletcher: Oscar De La Hoya, the promoter for WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs), sees his next fight on HBO pay-per-view on May 7 as the fight that could turn him into a star in the United States.
Canelo will be fighting welterweight Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs), and it’s a fight that could bring in big pay-per-view numbers if everything goes well. De La Hoya and his promotional company Golden Boy believe the Canelo-Khan fight is going to bring in bigger numbers than the 900,000 buys Canelo’s last fight against Miguel Cotto brought in last November.
That would be pretty special because Cotto is a major PPV attraction in the U.S, and Khan is not. Khan has never headlined a pay-per-view card before in the U.S, even though he tried very hard to get fights against Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao in the past with no luck.
“This is Canelo’s coming out party. Canelo now has the opportunity to become that next exciting pay-per-view king and Tecate will definitely help with his popularity here in the United States,” De La Hoya told ESPN.com. “When you connect with the American consumer it’s like you’ve made it.”
Canelo signed a deal with the Mexican beer producing company Tecate this week. With this endorsement deal, Canelo will be seen on commercials in the U.S, which will give him more visibility than he ever received before. Canelo will be seen by a lot of non-boxing fans, who could be curious enough about him to want to pay to see his fight against Khan on May 7.
“He understands how important it is,” De La Hoya said. “He’s been a little shy about speaking it because he likes to do everything perfect. But I’ve told him there’s no such thing as being perfect. He understands that as long as you’re making the effort people will respect that.”
Canelo is still learning English at this point, but he’s making good progress. If he can learn to speak English fluently the way that Cotto did, he could turn into a huge star. For the boxing fans who remember the early days of Cotto’s career, he was speaking in Spanish only during interviews. He quickly learned to speak English and now speaks very well.
The Canelo-Khan fight might not turn Canelo into a huge star overnight, but it’s definitely going to help make him a bigger star. The attention the fight has attracted in the three weeks since it was announced suggests that it could very well bring in more pay-per-view buys than the Canelo-Cotto fight did.
This is a result of Canelo becoming a bigger name from the Cotto fight. Canelo won more fans with his win over Puerto Rican star, and now he has an even larger following. Khan is helping make the fight a big one too, because he’s well-known among the hardcore boxing fans in the U.S.
Canelo cannot afford any slipups in the Khan fight, because his career depends on it. Canelo is on course for a big money fight against IBF/IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin in September on HBO PPV, and he can’t afford to lose to Khan. If Canelo loses the fight, Khan would be the one that would be facing Golovkin.
Comments are closed.