By Craig Daly: Promoter Oscar De La Hoya didn’t like what he saw last Saturday night with Canelo Alvarez easily beating a frightened-looking Jermell Charlo, recruited by the Mexican star from the 154-lb division in a showcase fight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
De La Hoya says he wants the promoters to get together to discuss putting together more “super fights” to keep boxing from dying out completely, which, given the things are going, is rapidly occurring.
It’s pretty much asking for the impossible to expect promoters to put their money-making fighters in against opposition that could beat them because they would left with guys that would be tarnished.
Oscar is part of the problem as well, matching his fighters Ryan Garcia, Jaime Munguia, and Gilberto Ramirez against a lot of stiffs. Ryan is fighting a no-name guy, 135-pounder Oscar Duarte, next in December instead of a top contender from the 140-lb division where he currently fights.
This is just another one of the many examples of promoters putting together weak fights that do little to create interest in boxing.
“If we want boxing to survive, if we want boxing to thrive, we need super-fights, like all the time,” said De La Hoya on social media. “Fighters must fight each other. We have to come together. Promoters, Eddie Hearn, Al Haymon, Bob Arum, whoever’s out there, let’s come together. Canelo-Charlo, super-boring. [Jermell] just showed up for a paycheck.”
Many of the promoters & fighters are only interested in looking for cash-out fights, and in between them, they only take easy, sure-thing matches that are no threat to their ability to keep making money.
So, for example, Canelo is taking on soft opposition like Jermell Charlo & John Ryder instead of facing the top guys in his weight class at 168, David Benavidez & David Morrell Jr. or Dmitry Bivol, who has volunteered to come down to super middleweight for the rematch.
With Canelo, he’s expected to continue to cherry-pick opposition, avoiding Benavdez, Morrell & other top fighters at 168. For Canelo’s next fight, the two leading candidates are these guys:
- Terence Crawford -147-pounder
- Jermall Charlo – a 160-lb fighter who hasn’t fought in 2 1/2 years and is arguably washed.
Canelo is obviously to continue to take easy fights while avoiding the sharks at 168 because it’s safe to say that if Alvarez fought the guys he should be fighting, Benavidez, Morrell & Bivol, he’d lose to all of them and his perch as the ‘Face of Boxing’ would be finished. Moreover, the massive easy money flowing into Canelo’s hands with mismatches would disappear.
