By Sean Jones: Canelo Alvarez’s promoter Eddy Reynoso states that he’s received an offer to stage the superstar’s next fight against WBC cruiserweight champion Ilunga Makabu (28-2, 25 KOs) in Congo.
Canelo is about to turn another average fighter into a wealthy man overnight when he takes on Makabu. We’ve watched Canelo turn the following fighters into millionaires recently:
- Caleb Plant
- Billy Joe Saunders
- Callum Smith
- Daniel Jacobs
- Sergey Kovalev
- Rocky Fielding
- Avni Yildirim
- Gennadiy Golovkin
Now, it’s Makabu’s turn to get the Canelo millions after winning the lottery in getting picked out for a fight that U.S boxing fans aren’t excited about.
Will Canelo give up his home advantage?
We’ll see if Canelo (57-1-2, 39 KOs) elects to stage the fight in that country, as tends to fight mainly in Las Vegas, which is a city that has been VERY good to him when it comes to the scoring of some of his most important fights over the last seven years.
For Canelo to give up the huge advantage that he enjoys fighting in Las Vegas to face the 34-year-old Makabu in his home country of the Congo, it’s difficult for Sean Jones to believe it.
Even if the money is better, Canelo likely won’t want to put himself in a position where he’s got a huge crowd of pro-Makabu fans rooting against him, especially given that he’s going to be much smaller at 5’7″ than his opponent.
On the surface, Canelo vs. Makabu isn’t that big of a fight. When you ignore the Canelo is moving up to cruiserweight to fight a bigger guy to try and become a five-division world champion, the fight is appealing than some of the ones the Mexican superstar could have taken instead.
The U.S boxing fans would much prefer to see Canelo face one of these talented fighters than watching him face arguably the weakest link among the five champions at cruiserweight:
- David Benavidez
- Jermall Charlo
- Gennadiy Golovkin
- Dmitry Bivol
- Jaime Munguia
- Joe Smith Jr
When WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman announced on Tuesday that Canelo will be moving up to cruiserweight to challenge Makabu for his title, the disappointment in Sulaiman’s voice was hard to miss.
It would have resonated a lot more if Canelo had hand-picked IBF cruiserweight champion Mairis Briedis or WBO champion Lawrence Okolie in an attempt to become a five-division world champion.
That would have shown a TON of courage on Canelo’s part to willingly take on one of the best at cruiserweight instead of cherry-picking arguably the worst of the champions in Makabu.
Obviously, Canelo doesn’t want to lose and definitely doesn’t want to get knocked out, which is likely why he’s swerved Briedis and Okolie. Makabu is an easy mark of the bunch, and I just wonder if it was Canelo or his eagle-eyed trainer Reynoso that picked this soft champion?
He sounded very disappointed, and it’s possible that the WBC president Sulaiman was hoping Canelo would fight Benavidez, GGG or Charlo, or even Munguia.
All those guys would have resulted in huge bouts that the American and Mexican boxing fans would have been looking forward to. Sean Jones understands why Canelo chose not to fight any of those guys, though, because most of them would have had a good chance of beating him.
If you’ve seen Makabu fight, you’ll know he has NO chance of beating Canelo because he’s a very limited fighter, and the only reason he’s the WBC cruiserweight champion is that he beat a badly flawed Michal Cieslak last year in January.
Had Makabu fought one of the talented cruiserweight like Mairis Briedis, Lawrence Okolie, Yuniel Dorticos, or Murat Gassiev, he likely would have lost.
“I’m very happy to fight Canelo. I’ll fight Canelo anywhere he wants,” said Makabu to Little Giant Boxing.
“You are tough and the best, and you are meeting the best. It’s a big opportunity for me to fight the best boxer in the world.”
