Canelo Alvarez has refiled his lawsuit against Golden Boy and DAZN

By Boxing News - 09/29/2020 - Comments

By Dan Ambrose: Canelo Alvarez has reportedly refiled his lawsuit against DAZN and Golden Boy Promotions. According to Mike Coppinger, the lawsuit complaint has been reduced from the original 24 pages to 23.

The former four-division world champion Canelo (53-1-2, 36 KOs) is currently in mediation with DAZN and Golden Boy. It remains to be seen if they can work something out.

If Canelo can work out a deal quickly, then it’s possible – but not likely – that he could fight later this year in November or December. That’s good news. The bad news is that it’ll likely be one of these three fighters:

  • Avni Yildirim
  • Billy Joe Saunders
  • Callum Smith

Smith and Saunders are both from the UK, and they hold titles in the 168-lb division. Both guys came close to losing their last fights.

Canelo offered a new deal

DAZN is said to have offered Canelo a new $20 million per fight deal with the upside potential based on the number of subscribers he pulls in. That’s an incentive for Canelo to selection opponents that fans want to see him fight rather than opponents that casual boxing fans have never heard of and have zero interest in seeing him.

Image: Canelo Alvarez has refiled his lawsuit against Golden Boy and DAZN

The deal that DAZN offers Canelo is good for the fans because it encourages Canelo to fight the best rather than take easy fights. If Canelo wants to be stubborn and not fight the guys that will bring in a lot of subscribers to DAZN, then he would be shooting himself in the foot because he’ll make less money.

The type of opponents that Canelo needs to fight to bring in a lot of subscribers are these fighters:

  • Gennady Golovkin
  • David Benavidez
  • Caleb Plant
  • Dmitry Bivol
  • Artur Beterbiev
  • Jermell Charlo
  • Jermall Charlo
  • Demetrius Andrade

In other words, Canelo should fight the guys that he needed to from the beginning of his contract with DAZN. If Canelo had fought these fighters instead of the ones that he picked out, it’s possible that his problems with DAZN would have never surfaced. But by Canelo picking opponents that the boxing public only had scant interest in seeing, that would appear to be the reason why DAZN failed to bring in a massive amount of subscribers.

If Canelo wants to make DAZN happy, he should face Golovkin as many times as possible in the remainder of his contract if he chooses to stay with them. Fighting Golovkin three times in a row would help not only DAZN’s bottom line but his own. If Canelo believes that he’ll knock out Golovkin the next time he faces him, then he should put that theory to the test.

Image: Canelo Alvarez has refiled his lawsuit against Golden Boy and DAZN

Alvarez should fight Golovkin already

DAZN would like to see Canelo face Gennadiy Golovkin in a trilogy match, which would bring in a lot of subscribers. It’s a mystery why Canelo chose not to fight Golovkin after signing his vast 11-fight, $365 million deal with the streaming giant.

The fans knew that DAZN wanted Canelo to face GGG, but instead, he chose three less famous fighters.

It’s unclear whether Canelo would finish out the remaining eight fights on his contract with DAZN without facing Golovkin. That would have been interesting if Canelo had done that, and you can imagine the frusstrationDAZN would have had after he completed his contract.

In Canelo’s three fights that he’s had since signing with DAZN, he’s fought Sergey Kovalev, Rocky Fielding, and Daniel Jacobs. None of them were considered premium wars.

Kovalev would have been a premium fight if Canelo fought him back in 2013 when he was still in his prime. Unfortunately, by the time Canelo fought the 36-year-old Kovalev, he was old and shot.

Callum won a controversial decision over his mandatory John Ryder last November in Liverpool.  Saunders was getting beaten by an unknown fighter from Argentinian named Marcelo Coceres when he scored an 11th round knockout.

Image: Canelo Alvarez has refiled his lawsuit against Golden Boy and DAZN

Assuming DAZN gives Canelo the green light to fight one of those three fighters, they might be sorry for it later. The casuals know none of those guys, and they are not going to be excited at seeing Canelo fight any of them. Callum and Saunders = Rocky Fielding in terms of name recognition in the States.

The hardcore boxing fans in the states know them, but there’s no demand from them to see Canelo fight those guys.

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