Has Canelo Alvarez and Floyd Mayweather's Battle for PPV Supremacy Begun?
Anyone with two working eyes and a sense of boxing—sorry, C.J. Ross—could clearly see that Floyd Mayweather had put the brakes on Canelo Alvarez last September. He dominated the budding Mexican star and put a huge dent in his plans to seize the throne of boxing royalty.
Mayweather clearly won the battle on that night, but is it possible he sowed the seeds of losing the war?
Canelo’s star hasn’t dimmed in the slightest since the loss—he’s probably even more popular now—but Mayweather has seen sagging pay-per-view numbers and waning public interest in lackluster challengers since.
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Coupled with recent developments in the Mayweather camp—he’s rumored to be splitting with longtime co-manager, friend and confidante Leonard Ellerbe, according to Ben Thompson of FightHype.com (h/t Las Vegas Review-Journal)—the seas ahead could be getting rocky for the boxing superstar.
And now it appears that the 24-year-old Mexican, sensing opportunity, could be preparing to take another run at the pound-for-pound king, not in the ring but where it really hurts—his wallet.
Miguel Rivera of BoxingScene.com reports that Oscar De La Hoya, Canelo’s promoter, has been given a very specific set of instructions for the cinnamon-haired former champion’s first fight of 2015.
And they’re not likely to be met with satisfaction in the Mayweather camp.
"I have orders from Canelo. He wants to fight on May [2], and I, as his promoter, have to get him a fight on these dates [that he requests]," De La Hoya told Rivera.
That date might ring a few bells.
It’s Cinco de Mayo weekend, and it’s a date Mayweather has called home for fights in five of the last seven years.
Coupled with his traditional date in September—coinciding with Mexican Independence Day—Mayweather has had a monopoly on the calendar’s two biggest fight weekends. That’s helped him to maximize his earnings, drawing in many of boxing’s traditionally important demographic groups.
But Canelo now has the opportunity, and apparently the wherewithal, to ascend to the point of challenging Mayweather for the date and throwing some serious mud on his future plans.
Unlike Mayweather, Canelo is Mexican born and bred. Before anyone gets into a tizzy and tries to find something that’s not there, this isn’t a commentary on race, but a point about the ability to draw one’s fanbase out to support a fight.
Canelo, despite his lopsided defeat, remains a rock star in the boxing-crazed nation of Mexico. He has proved this year that he can carry a pay-per-view card with his own name, drawing an estimated 350,000 buys for his March showdown with Alfredo Angulo.
His numbers against Erislandy Lara have not been released, which is generally not a great sign, but rumors from ESPN's Dan Rafael (h/t Boxing News 24) indicate that the buyrate came in below the Angulo fight.
So how exactly does this equate to a challenge of a man who has sold more PPVs than any fighter in history?
It’s all about options.
Speculation about a Canelo challenge of newly minted WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto has been rampant for months, and the promotional might and intrigue of that bout could blow anything Mayweather has planned out of the water.
Anything.
De La Hoya and Top Rank head Bob Arum, who recently buried the hatchet, have been discussing the possibility of the huge Mexico vs. Puerto Rico showdown ever since Cotto toppled longtime middleweight kingpin Sergio Martinez in June.
Canelo vs. Cotto, easily one of the biggest fights in the sport today, would match a young, ascending fighter against an old-guard legend.
It would match two traditional boxing powerhouses that are known for producing dozens of world champions and some of the gutsiest fighters the sport has ever known.
On Cinco de Mayo weekend, it would be box-office gold.
It would be, in short, enough to force Mayweather to cede his traditional hold on the date and wait for calmer waters in September.
That possibility has already been floated—Mayweather said at the post-fight presser on Saturday night that he’d need to see how his body felt before committing to a return date—and would be all but sealed by Cotto vs. Canelo being signed.
Mayweather is a businessman, and he’s a smart one at that.
He built his empire through a combination of astute business practices, unmatched marketing and a keen nose for opportunity.
And he knows when it’s time to move forward.
You have to give Canelo some credit for challenging Mayweather’s hegemony in this way, and if you look at the board, it appears that he has the pound-for-pound king checkmated.
Realistically, what could Mayweather pull out of his hat that would compete, much less outdraw, a Cotto vs. Canelo matchup?
Manny Pacquiao?
Forget it.
We’ve already been down this road too many times, and there’s no need to rehash all the salient details.
Suffice it to say that a million things would need to go right for this fight to ever become a reality, and one big stopping point would kill it in its infancy.
There’s absolutely no way that Arum, who has no love for Mayweather and vice versa, would undercut Cotto vs. Canelo—he promotes Cotto—by putting Pacquiao in there with Mayweather on the same date.
It would smack of a desperation move from Mayweather—who has seen his PPV numbers drop since fighting Canelo—and Arum isn’t going to be the one throwing him a lifeline.
Not a chance.
So what does that leave for Mayweather to challenge Canelo?
Nothing.
Even the most prominently mentioned foe for May, Amir Khan, presents his share of problems.
Khan, like Canelo, is promoted by Golden Boy, and would you expect De La Hoya to promote one of his fighters in a competing card against his golden goose?
There’s just no way.
Whether or not it was intentional—draw your own conclusions—Canelo and Golden Boy have put Mayweather in quite a spot.
Will he move off his traditional Cinco de Mayo date? Or will he just postpone his show until September?
Either way, he’s in a position rarely seen during his reign of dominance.
Mayweather is reacting and not driving events, and he’s been put in that spot by a guy he beat—handily.
Only in boxing.
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