By Dean Berman: The reports out of Japan that surfaced Thursday morning about Canelo Alvarez vs. Ryota Murata fight having been agreed for May 24 are not valid. [@MikeCoppinger]. He reports that Billy Joe Saunders and Callum Smith are BOTH in the mix for a Canelo fight on May 2, as well as WBA ‘regular’ middleweight champion Murata (16-2, 13 KOs).
Don’t be surprised if Canelo still fights Murata
It won’t be surprising if Murata still winds up as Canelo’s opponent for May 24, as the promoters at Golden Boy and Top Rank Boxing will obviously want to announce the fight themselves.
One way of doing that is to deny the rumors about the fight being agreed on. You’d like to think that Golden Boy and Top Rank would be paying attention to the lack of interest from American fans in the Canelo-Murata fight. Ideally, if the promoters are responsive to what the fans want, then they’ll make sure Canelo doesn’t fight Murata. However, this is about business.
Canelo and the promoters make a lot of money staging a fight over in Japan, and it won’t matter that the fight turns out to be a one-sided affair and is poorly received by Americans. It’s way of Canelo and the promoters making money. Further, DAZN can expand their reach by Canelo fighting Murata in Japan. For that reason, it’s still quite likely that Canelo ends up facing Murata, even if the fight makes America fans upset.
Fans react negatively to Canelo-Murata rumors
The reaction to the false news of Canelo-Murata being agreed on for May 24 in Japan was especially negative from U.S boxing fans, who saw it yet another example of Canelo (53-1-2, 36 KOs) taking the soft path with his career in going after the most flawed champion of the bunch in 34-year-old Murata.
Previous to this, Canelo beat arguably the worst of the champions at 175 in Sergey Kovalev last November, and then quickly vacated the belt when pressure started mounting for him to face IBF/WBC light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev in a unification fight.
“Sources: There is no deal to match Canelo Alvarez and Ryoto Murata in May, despite multiple reports out of Japan. Billy Joe Saunders and Callum Smith remain in the mix, as does Murata,” said @MikeCoppinger.
This was the second time in which Murata was said to be getting the Canelo fight, and then only to have the information dismissed as not being valid.
You can’t say it was too good to be true about the Canelo vs. Murata fight, because it’s not a great fight. With that said, Saunders and Callum Smith are both poor choices as well. U.S boxing fans don’t want to see Canelo fight any of those three.
If fans were forced to choose one of the three at the threat walking the plank off of a pirate ship, they’d probably choose Callum. He’ll at least come to fight. What takes away interest in a fight between Canelo and Callum was how bad the British fighter looked recently against John Ryder.