By Dan Ambrose: Eddie Hearn says the contracts are being finalized for Canelo Alvarez to defend his undisputed super middleweight championship against WBO mandatory John Ryder for May 6th on DAZN in Guadalajara, Mexico.
According to Matchroom Boxing promoter Hearn, an announcement should take place next week for the Canelo vs. Ryder fight, which is expected to be staged at the 55,000-seat Jalisco Stadium in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Canelo (58-2-2, 39 KOs) is reportedly taking a MONSTROUS pay cut, rumored to be $20 million, to get this warm-up level fight against ‘The Gorilla’ Ryder (32-5, 18 KOs).
It’s hard for the average boxing fan to comprehend giving away $20M, but for the mega-rich like Canelo, he’s sitting on a fortune estimated at $180 million, according to Celebrity Net worth, so it’s the end of the world that he’s losing out on twenty million smackers.
Still, it’s difficult for the average person or even a millionaire to consider making a deal that would result in losing out on massive money the way Canelo is doing by choosing to fight the 34-year-old Ryder when he could fight other opposition and make considerably more.
From where Canelo is standing, if he doesn’t take this gimme against the five-loss British fighter Ryder, he would be expected to take a fight that the boxing world wants to see against David Benavidez, Dmitry Bivol or Artur Beterbiev, and his chances of beating any of those three killers are slim.
So while there is a heck of a lot more money for the 32-year-old Canelo to make fight ‘The Big Three’ instead of the infinitely more beatable soft touch Ryder, chances of him losing are infinitely higher.
To become super wealthy, you’ve got to take risks and NOT take the easy way out. In this case, Canelo doesn’t appear willing to take those risks to increase his fortune the way that the super-rich of the past in the Gilded age would do, like these incredibly wealthy people:
- John Rockefeller
- JP Morgan
- Cornelius Vanderbilt
- Andrew Carnegie
- Collis Huntington
- Jay Gould
Canelo vs. Ryder could be announced next week
“It is a massive fight for John. I really feel like he deserves it, and we are looking forward to giving him the opportunity to appear on a historic show,” said Eddie Hearn to the Metro about his Matchroom stable fighter John Ryder, who is in negotiations to fight superstar Canelo Alvarez on May 6th in Guadalajara, Mexico.
“Not yet,’ said Hearn when asked if the Canelo vs. Ryder fight is official for May 6th. “We are still trying to finalize the contracts for that fight, and hopefully, you will get an announcement next week. Now we are just working on getting everything over the line,” said Hearn.
