Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-1-1, 30 KO’s) is expected to select his next opponent for his March 8th fight date this week. The fight will be pay-per-view, so whoever it is, it’s going to be a fight that the boxing public will be expected to pay to see. That’s not a big deal because Canelo’s fights are frequently exciting affairs with tons of action.
What’s not exciting is the list opponents that Canelo has to pick from for this date. Miguel Cotto is not available for March 8th, so he’s not an option for Canelo. The fighters that Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer has for Canelo to pick from are from this bunch: Erislandy Lara, Carlos Molina, or Alfredo Angulo. The fight will be staged at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Schaefer still would like to setup a fight between Canelo and Cotto for the second part of 2014. He told the LA Times “We hope that the fight with Cotto will be happening later in [2014].”
It’s possible that Canelo could choose the recently beaten Angulo as his next opponent because Schaefer is already talking about having Lara face Molina on the undercard if that’s who Canelo chooses. There’s no problem with Canelo choosing to fight Angulo rather than someone that would have a pretty good chance of beating him like Lara would. But it’s difficult to imagine boxing fans being eager to pay to see Canelo-Angulo on PPV. Angulo was beaten up by Lara last June in a 10th round TKO, and he’s not fought since then. That would mean that Angulo would be going into a PPV fight with Canelo off of a stoppage loss. That just doesn’t seem right to make that fight a PPV bout with Angulo having been stopped in his last fight, and Canelo coming off of a loss as well.
The good thing Golden Boy is that even if Canelo does face Angulo in a mismatch, Golden Boy will likely stock the undercard with good fights, so it’s not going to be a total loss. It’s just that it would be nice if they discounted the Canelo-Angulo steeply to make up for the fact that both guys are coming off of losses.
Canelo vs. Molina is another fight that would be less than appealing for PPV. Molina isn’t a star and he tends to do a lot of holding on the inside. That would potentially be a horrible fight to watch.