By Boxing Insider News
The respective fighters are now almost three months from weighing in for a big-money showdown, but as can be expected, boxing people are weighing in with their opinions already.
Whether the parties are “interested” or formerly interested, it is hard to find support for Canelo Alvarez in his scheduled September 14 fight against Floyd Mayweather, who has seemingly responded to great public demand by taking this fight when he may have preferred a softer touch.
Bob Arum, the CEO of Top Rank, is a man who has mastered the art of “Schadenfreude,” meaning, like most boxing people, he does take great pleasure in the failure of others he has no stake in, and that is especially true of those he does not like.
He used to be Mayweather’s promoter, until the WBC welterweight champion left him to more or less go on his own. So it’s quite likely that nothing would please him more than to see Mayweather get knocked out somewhere along the way.
Still, he can’t let his personal feelings get in the way of an honest evaluation of this fight, or so one supposes. He simply cannot see himself to throwing support behind Alvarez, at least at a betting window.
He told one interviewer on YouTube, “The problem with Canelo, as with a lot of young fighters, is they don’t have the stamina, they run out of gas. That’s what happened to him in the Austin Trout fight. Austin Trout didn’t know how to capitalize, Mayweather would.”
Mayweather is much older than Alvarez (36 years of age to Alvarez’s 22), and although Canelo appears to be very worldly, boxing-wise, for someone his age, he still has not encountered anyone who has the savvy of Mayweather. And Floyd showed that he hadn’t really slowed down that much when he scored his easy twelve-round decision over Robert Guerrero a little more than a month ago.
Some ringside observers think that Mayweather is undertaking an unusual amount of risk when he steps into the ring with Alvarez who holds the WBC belt at super welterweight but will be coming down two pounds to contest this bout at a maximum of 152. And regardless of where you look on the internet, you don’t have to lay more than 3-to-1 on Floyd to win.
Some may be of the opinion that Arum has prejudices that run both ways, since he may equally hate Golden Boy Promotions, the outfit that has Canelo Alvarez under contract, because it was formed after Oscar De La Hoya, whom Arum had promoted to superstardom, decided to bolt Top rank and form his own company.
Well, Floyd Mayweather Sr. happens to be a VERY interested party, although there was a time not that long ago when he would have probably considered working the opposite corner from his son. He is astute in his boxing observations, however, so when he talks, people listen, even though he knows on which side his bread is buttered at the moment.
Floyd Sr. explained that his son bruised his right hand in the bout with Guerrero, which may have been the only thing that stood between “The Ghost” and a stoppage loss. Will the relatively short layoff be enough time to heal up and get ready? The trainer thinks it will.
And he is not overlooking the opponent either. He told David Mayo of the Grand Rapids Press, “Don’t get me wrong – when you can punch, you can punch, and Alvarez can punch,” but he also added that his son will be way ahead of Canelo every step of the way and that, in fact, “I think this fight can be as easy as Guerrero.”
