By Brad Cronick: WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (41-0-1, 30 KO’s) is rumored to be fighting on the undercard of Floyd Mayweather Jr’s next fight on May 4th next year but nothing is confirmed on that end as of yet. Alvarez is hoping that he’ll get the fight with Mayweather on that date but it’s not looking like that’s going to happen. It’s possible but not probable because Robert Guerrero’s name has been the one mentioned as the likely opponent for Mayweather.
Alvarez’s options for the May 4th fight are as of now limited to three fighters: Miguel Cotto, Austin Trout and James Kirkland. Golden Boy Promotions wants to have Alvarez take on a fighter with a name so that it will make the fight a much bigger one and of course increase the gate and the pay per view numbers. With the junior middleweight division lacking fighters that casual boxing fans are familiar with, Alvarez’s options are limited to only a small handful of fighters.
Austin Trout isn’t well known yet and he may not be a big enough name to increase the value of the Mayweather fight card on May 4th. Cotto obviously is the ideal name because he’s got a big fan base in the United States, and he would bring a lot more to the card if he were selected. However, he did lose his last fight to Trout on December 1st, and he might not be interested in fighting Alvarez coming off of a loss.
Boxing fans probably won’t mind that Cotto has lost his last two fights, because they have short memories and many fans might not even know that he lost. Kirkland is a little better known than Trout but not enough to where it would make any appreciable difference.
The only difference I see in choosing Kirkland is that the fight would be more exciting and Alvarez would have a better chance of winning. Trout is a real handful for a fighter like Alvarez and there’s no guarantee that the 22-year-old Alvarez can beat him. But with Kirkland, Alvarez will have a slow fighter who hasn’t fought since March, and he looked really poor then. Kirkland is beatable for Alvarez and pretty much non-risky fight.
Other than those three fighters, there’s not much else to look at in the division unless Golden Boy wants to look for another old toothless lion to put in with Alvarez like Ricardo Mayorga or maybe another welterweight or light welterweight. Golden Boy hasn’t been taking any chances with Alvarez in the last couple of years.
They’ve been feeding Canelo mostly welterweights thus far, and even had him fight for the WBC 154 pound title against a welterweight. As such, it wouldn’t be surprising if Golden Boy raids the welterweight division to find someone for Alvarez to fight on May 4th, and the World Boxing Council likely won’t say anything because they’ve been okay with the welterweights that Alvarez has been facing.