Which Will Have More Viewers: Chavez's or Canelo's Card?

It doesn’t make any sense. Then again, it’s boxing and very few things that transpire in boxing make sense.

We have another fine frustrating conundrum coming up on September 15, Mexican Independence Day, when WBC junior middleweight world champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez headlines against Josesito Lopez at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

The major dilemma facing fight fans on September 15 comes right down the street, where middleweight world champion Sergio Martinez defends his numerous belts against hallowed famous namesake Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., who holds the WBC version of the middleweight title, at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.

Alvarez-Lopez will be shown on Showtime, available to subscribers, while its major rival, HBO, will carry Martinez-Chavez Jr. as a $54.95 pay-per-view fight.

Adding to the already frosty relationship between powerhouse promoters Top Rank and Golden Boy is that they’re also butting heads that night.

Martinez-Chavez Jr. is being promoted by Bob Arum’s Top Rank, while the Alvarez-Lopez show will be promoted by Arum’s rival, Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions.

One promotional company claims one thing, the other promotional company claims something else. It’s all curtain fringes. The real conflict involving these conflicting shows will be placed on fight fans. They’re the ones in a quandary deciding what fight should they watch.

The fight that is more appealing is Martinez-Chavez Jr. However, the fight that will probably have more viewers is Alvarez-Lopez, simply because it’s on subscriber-based Showtime, a remote button away for its 21.3 million subscribers. A quarter of that audience would suffice Saturday, September 15 to beat out anything Martinez-Chavez Jr. generates.

Martinez-Chavez Jr. is a fight fan’s fight between two Latin stars that have a very small American mainstream following. It’s a card that also features a junior lightweight battle between Rocky Martinez and Miguel Beltran for a vacant alphabet belt and a 10-round middleweight tilt between Matthew Macklin and Joachim Alcine.

Alvarez-Lopez won’t exactly stir American mainstream sports fans into a wild frenzy, either, but those boxing fans that are interested in what promises to be an entertaining fight won’t have to shell out the added $54.95 to watch it.

That’s the key here.

That, and a promising undercard on the Alvarez-Lopez show that is deeper with potentially more exciting fights than the Martinez-Chavez Jr. show, with a featherweight battle between Jhonny Gonzalez and Daniel Ponce De Leon and a welterweight clash between Marcos Maidana and Jesus Soto Karass.

The competing fights take place during college football season, the NFL will be in entering its second weekend and Major League Baseball will be in grind time as teams vie for playoff spots. So there will be a lot going on.

Boxing doesn’t need to do this to itself, especially Top Rank and Golden Boy, the sport’s two banner promotional entities.

They’re supposed to be growing the sport, making boxing more appealing to fans that don’t follow boxing on a regular basis.

Instead, this conflict further negates that possibility.

And it scraps the chance anyone would be interested in reaching into their wallets to pay for Martinez-Chavez Jr. That’s the shame of it, because an appealing, fan-friendly superstar like Martinez really gets shorted by this mess. He deserves cross-over marquee attention on a pay-per-view, especially sharing that billing with someone like Chavez Jr., who carries a heavy Mexican following.

Alvarez does, too, though. And the difference between Canelo and Chavez Jr. is real ability. Saul Alvarez has it. Chavez Jr. doesn’t. But he does have a name that has carried him to September 15.

Too bad Martinez won’t get the backing that he truly deserves. Then again, none of the fighters featured on both cards will.