Mayweather vs. Canelo Fight: Last-Minute Expert Predictions for Tonight's Bout

The moment boxing fans have been waiting a half-decade for has finally arrived. Later on Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, boxing will usurp the national conversation and become the biggest sport of the moment, when Floyd Mayweather takes on Saul "Canelo" Alvarez.

A card that rivals any we've seen in this generation of boxing, Mayweather (44-0, 26 KOs) will look to extend one of the greatest undefeated runs in the sport's history. An overwhelming favorite and growing legend in the sport, Money May has lived up to his name in every stretch building up to the bout. He's making $41.5 million for the fight, nearly $10 million more than the previous purse record—which he held, of course.

Alvarez (42-0-1, 30 KOs) has different motivations.

Pulling in roughly $10 million for a little over an hour's work isn't bad, but the 23-year-old Mexican is looking to cement his place in the boxing hierarchy. The talk of Alvarez becoming the next face of boxing has been pervasive in the build-up to this bout, yet there are some who wonder whether Canelo has done anything to earn such hype.

Killing the Mayweather hypebeast would be one hell of a way to create a legend. Forty-four men have come and tried, some legends and others not so much. They've each shared the same fate.

No one ultimately knows what will happen until it does later tonight, but until the bell sounds in Round 1, let the speculation continue. Opinions across the pugilism realm have come flooding in over these past couple weeks and months, and now everyone seems locked into a favorite. 

With that in mind, let's take one last look at the boxing world's pool of experts and see who they're taking in the 9 p.m. ET event broadcast on Showtime.

ESPN Experts Weigh In

As you may or may not have been able to tell, ESPN's group of experts is heavily pro-Mayweather. Eleven of the 12 fighting and boxing experts polled went with Money May, each choosing him to win the fight via unanimous decision.

Recent history tells us that's a good bet.

Four of Mayweather's last five bouts have finished on the judges' scorecards, where each time the result came back in quite obvious fashion. The only exception was his knockout win over Victor Ortiz. Overall, Mayweather has won via unanimous decision 17 times in his career, behind only knockouts as his most likely decision.

As his career has continued rising in notoriety, though, those unanimous-decision wins have become more frequent. Playing on the likelihood and both fighters' penchant for elongated bouts, not even dissenting opinion Tony Atlas chose to step out on a limb and call a knockout. 

Consenting Opinion, Michael Woods: "Don't believe the hype: There will be no knockout. Both fighters are smart tacticians, so we can expect very few slobberknocker moments. Canelo's hand speed is good, but his feet aren't fast enough to allow him to touch Floyd often enough to sway the judges."

Dissenting Opinion, Teddy Atlas: "Alvarez will survive some early trouble, and when Floyd plays it safe and doesn't pursue a KO, Canelo will have the chance to steal a decision by using his underrated hand speed and body work."

Other Experts 

Another group of boxing experts, another massive co-sign in the favor of the Money Team. When you look at a company as large and as reaching as ESPN, there sometimes tends to be a groupthink mentality. No one wants to be the dissent, unless they're Teddy Atlas and have the impeccable reputation that he does.

When looking across the Web, it's much easier to find what a general consensus could be.

And this doesn't look good for Canelo. While almost down the line each of these experts acknowledge that Alvarez is a massive upgrade in opponent from Robert Guerrero, being 36 hasn't quite sapped Mayweather of his elite quickness quite yet. 

Couple that with a boxing mind that we've seen maybe a handful of times in the sport's history, and it makes for an awfully difficult battle for Alvarez on Saturday. The most notable change from the ESPN experts from the previous section was that multiple predicted Mayweather would win via knockout, including CBS Sports' Lyle Fitzsimmons.

Consenting Opinion, Fitzsimmons: "Unless his day of age reckoning arrives this weekend, he's still the faster and more skilled fighter and represents a gigantic leap in class over anything Alvarez has been in with. The longer the fight progresses, the more that'll matter and the more the disparity in landed punches will grow. Ultimately, it'll mean an intervention from referee Kenny Bayless, somewhere past the halfway point of round 10."

Dissenting Opinion, Kelsey McCarson (TheSweetScience.com): "Mayweather has been the best in the business for a long time, but how much longer can he keep it up? Canelo is bigger, stronger and almost just as fast. I like Canelo in an upset by close decision. As the fight goes into the later rounds, the 23-year-old’s punches will simply be too heavy for the now 36-year-old Floyd Mayweather."

The Boxers, Past and Present

It's a bit of a cop-out to say that no one knows the sport better than the ones who played it. While that sentiment is true in some cases, we often see members of the media, general managers and coaches who never once played a sport becoming a renowned expert. 

But in hand-to-hand combat—especially boxing—there are no algorithms or advanced metrics that tell you who is truly the best fighter. Pound-for-pound rankings are inherently subjective. Yes, the win-loss record of each boxer and the way they've looked in their most-recent outings. It's just a fact in the sport that the "who's the best" question is always answered by equal parts fact and opinion—if not more tilted to the latter side.

So, in lieu of stat-geekery, I tend to give boxers more sway than anyone else when it comes to predicting these fights. Guys in this sport tend to be like NFLers, in that they can't give up the sport long after they're away. They stick around, either starting promotions or just watching every prizefight with the same vigor that a former high school star quarterback turned part-time laborer watches on Friday nights.

It seems boxers, former pro and current, are going with the oddsmakers. The men who know the sport the best have Mayweather scored 8-2 of the 10 most notable names who have given their opinion, with most citing big-fight experience for Money May's impending triumph.

Consenting Opinion, Lennox Lewis (h/t Newsday): "Mayweather will win because of his speed and experience. He's been at this level before so that will also be an advantage. He's the best until proven otherwise. Canelo is talented, young, strong and dangerous ... makes it all the more exciting."

Dissenting Opinion, George Foreman (ATG Radio (h/t BoxingScene.com): "Alvarez, this is his fight to lose. I'll put it to you like this—He's younger, he's a harder puncher, he has a greater future, he has nothing to lose. He can win this fight. Mayweather on the other hand can't hurt anybody."

Overall: 26 Mayweather, 4 Alvarez

No matter where you look in the boxing world—from experts, to former boxers, to current pugilists—it seems Mayweather is far and away the favorite. With just under 87 percent of the overall vote, the folks who ostensibly know the most about the fight give him better odds than even the Vegas oddsmakers.

Forty-four down. One more on the road to immortality in mere hours. Can Floyd pull it off again? The experts sure seem to think so.

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