Julio Chavez wants Canelo Alvarez to make tickets affordable for his Mexico fight on May 6th

By Boxing News - 02/24/2023 - Comments

By Dan Ambrose: Julio Cesar Chavez wants superstar Canelo Alvarez to make the ticket prices affordable for his Azteca stadium fight in Mexico City so that low-income fans can come to see him fight on May 6th on his return home to Mexico.

If Canelo chooses to charge through the roof for his tickets, he won’t fill out the 87,523-seat Azteca Stadium and could be fighting in front of a barren ghost town on the night against the obscure British fighter that he’s hand-picked as his prop to ensure he doesn’t get beat again.

Canelo (58-2-2, 39 KOs) is expected to defend his undisputed super middleweight championship against British fighter John ‘The Gorilla’ Ryder.

“That’s good because many people who can’t go to see him in Las Vegas will be able to see him there. That’s very good for Mexico,” said Julio Cesar Chavez to ESPN Knockout.

He has to give them [cheap tickets] because otherwise, low-income people will not be able to go see it,” Chavez continued about Canelo. “If he charges the same as in Las Vegas, I don’t think it will work for him, or that people will go. Let’s see.”

Canelo taking a pay cut to fight in Mexico

There are reports that Canelo will need to take a pay cut for this fight and that there isn’t a high degree of interest in this match-up against the 34-old Ryder (32-5, 18 KOs), who isn’t well known in the U.S, and not a big name in the UK.

While some fans will view Canelo’s pay cut as a sign that he’s willing to take less money so that he can give his Mexican fans a present by honoring them with a fight, others see it as a situation where there’s scant interest from fans in a non-marketable fight against ‘The Gorilla’ Ryder.

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In other words, this is an albatross-level contest that can’t be sold in the U.S. or UK because fans don’t want to see it. Canelo has fought too many soft jobs over the last five years, which has hurt his once-superstar status.

If your Canelo, you might have to give away tickets as complimentary for him to pack the Azteca Stadium. Perhaps give away a free bowl of soup and hotdogs and a day off from work to entice fans to come to see him fight Ryder. That might work.

Why is Alvarez NOT facing killer competition?

This is another example of Canelo NOT giving the fans what they want to see, choosing to return to the way he was matched from late 2018 to 2021, and opting to fight beatable English fighters rather than the killers that the fans want to see him in against, such as this murderer’s row:

  • Dmitry Bivol
  • David Benavidez
  • Artur Beterbiev
  • David Morrell
  • Caleb Plant

In the entertainment business, such as movies, for example, when a star performer produces dud after dud, fans quickly lose interest in wanting to watch them.  That is to say, they view the star as a washed-up has-been and move on to watch other stars that are young, vibrant, and putting out the products they want to see.

Unfortunately, Canelo has failed to keep testing himself by facing quality opposition for many years, resulting in his popularity waning and now fighting in Mexico against an obscure British fighter with five defeats, and fans are not eager to see yet another mismatch.

That’s the way it is with stars. They make money, get lazy, and stop putting out products that fans want to see, and people then get bored and walk away.

Canelo is a textbook example of a star that has grown soft and stopped taking risks after making a ton of dough during his career. Some would say that at this point in Canelo’s career, he’s more interested in playing golf than boxing. As a result, he’s now returning to fight weak opposition in a fight that no one wants to watch.