By Sean Jones: Canelo Alvarez’s trainer Eddy Reynoso says they’re considering Billy Joe Saunders. Caleb Plant, and Errol Spence Jr for their May and September fights.
Canelo (54-1-2, 36 KOs) is already planning on defending his WBC super middleweight title against Avni Yildirim on February 27th in Mexico.
That fight is a given, as Alvarez will be using the first fight of his new two-fight deal on DAZN to showcase his talent in front of his boxing fans in his hometown of Guadalajara, Mexico.
Reynoso says the other options for Canelo’s May and September fights are as follows:
- David Benavidez
- Jermall Charlo
- Gennadiy Golovkin
Interestingly, Reynoso states there are more compelling fights out there for Canelo than facing GGG (41-1-1, 36 KOs) a third time. Reynoso says Canelo has already battled Golovkin twice and fought 24 rounds against him, and it’s not interesting.
Reynoso would rather Canelo fight one of these guys rather than GGG again in 2021: Charlo, Spence, Saunders, or Plant.
DAZN probably won’t be too thrilled to learn that Reynoso would rather match Canelo against Plant and Saunders than he would against Golovkin, as neither of these fighters will bring in the subscribers that the third match with GGG will.
Plant, Saunders, and Benavidez being considered
“Yeah, we want to do three fights next year. We have to do our mandatory for the WBC with Avni Yildirim,” said Reynoso to Fighthub in talking about Canelo’s plans for 2021.
“After that, a fight in May and then September. We’re going to see who we can negotiate with. There’s a lot of fighters that want to fight with Saul like IBF champ Caleb Plant, the WBO champ Saunders and [David] Benavidez, who is ready to fight.
“GGG, the Charlos, there are a lot of fighters who want to fight, and we are ready to fight whoever. It’s just a case of whether the promoters can work things out. Eddie Hearn is presenting us right now, so let’s see what happens,” said Reynoso.
Canelo’s decision to unify the 168-lb division gives him a good excuse to take some easier fights against Saunders and Plant. We just saw Canelo dominate a very flawed WBA super middleweight champion Callum Smith on December 19th.
After listening to Canelo and Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn bang on for weeks that Callum was the #1 super middleweight, we saw the truth when he got in the ring with Canelo.
Smith resembled a bottom 50-level fighter rather than the #1, and it was obvious from his previous fight against John Ryder that he wasn’t a top-level guy. He was a paper champion, who picked up his WBA belt against an injured George Groves in 2018.
The name of the game for DAZN is to bring in the subscribers, and the way they’re going to do that is if Canelo faces Golovkin, not Saunders or Plant.
Canelo has more interesting fights than Golovkin
“Well, there are more interesting fights out there for Canelo,” Reynoso said when asked ‘How important is the third fight with GGG?’
“With GGG, we saw 24 rounds already. There’s Saunders out there, who is a magnificent fighter, and Caleb Plant, which is a good fight.
“The same with Benavidez, who is a great fighter but unfortunately didn’t make weight in his last fight. He has a lot of talent, and he’s interested in a fight with Canelo.
“There’s also Charlo and Errol Spence, who wants to move up to 160. But we will see what happens,” said Reynoso.
If you’re DAZN, Spence and Charlo are excellent options for Canelo Alvarez to fight in 2021. You can’t say the same about Saunders, Yildirim, and Plant Those are lesser fights.
If Canelo wants to make DAZN happy in the New Year, he’ll forget about unifying against Plant and Saunders, and focus instead on helping the streaming giant bring in new subscribers. Canelo can do that by fighting these guys:
- Jermall Charlo
- Jermell Charlo
- Demetrius Andrade
- Gennadiy Golovkin
- Dimitry Bivol
- Artur Beterbiev
- David Benavidez
It’s great that Reynoso is more excited at seeing Canelo fight Saunders and Plant than he is Golovkin, but those fights are not going to bring in the same amount of subscribers to DAZN.
They’re the ones that are paying Canelo. DAZN has been transparent all along that they want Canelo to fight Golovkin again, and yet it sounds like he and Reynoso aren’t interested in doing that. What does that tell you about Canelo?