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EVERYONE WANTS CANELO...AND DAZN WANTS WHAT?

By Paul Magno | December 14, 2018
EVERYONE WANTS CANELO...AND DAZN WANTS WHAT?

As Saul “Canelo” Alvarez prepares to meet Rocky Fielding this Saturday in New York’s Madison Square Garden for Fielding’s WBA super middleweight title, questions abound as to what the red-headed Mexican superstar will do next.

It’s easy to understand why Canelo is fighting Fielding right now—at least, easy to understand after the bout was already signed. He wants a third divisional title and to have it come against a relative soft touch. By walking through Fielding, Alvarez will be killing multiple birds with one stone. A third divisional title. A breather/gimme after back-to-back bouts with Gennady Golovkin. A showcase KO for new broadcast partners, DAZN. A bit of reputation recoup after about two years of bad public relations via two controversial Golovkin decisions, a laugher of a rout against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., and, of course, the whole clenbuterol debacle. A scrambling of Rocky at MSG is the first step in re-applying some of the shine to Alvarez’s star. 

But Canelo isn’t staying at 168 if/when he destroys Fielding. Streaming service DAZN didn’t invest $365 million into signing the 28-year-old and assembling a cast of contenders around him (Daniel Jacobs, Demetrius Andrade, David Lemieux) with the idea that he’d be competing at super middleweight, where no “names” reside and the upstart company carries no contract contenders. 

Alvarez will be back at 160 next year. The question is—who will be the holder of the Canelo lottery ticket, big-money title challenge?

Obviously, with the money involved in facing the top draw of the America’s (and maybe the world), everybody wants a shot. It doesn’t hurt that people see Alvarez as vulnerable, perhaps a bit undersized or limited in what he can do in the ring. He’s also, at least for the time being, carrying around the WBC and WBA middleweight titles.

“He's Scared...Where you at Cinnamon?” Top WBC contender and interim WBC middleweight champ Jermall Charlo bellowed during a recent FightHype interview. “We've been calling you out for a long time...It's that time to show up...Give the people what they want to see. The people want to see us fight the best in the world...Come on man, stop running behind [promoter] [Oscar] De La Hoya.”

And while Charlo may have the best case for being next, because of his standing in the WBC rankings, he’s probably the least likely to get a shot at Canelo. Conflicting business ties—Canelo is aligned to DAZN/Golden Boy while Charlo is an Al Haymon/PBC fighter—will keep this fight from happening. 

Daniel Jacobs, who recently captured the vacant IBF middleweight strap, probably has the inside track on a Canelo shot and he plans on being ringside at MSG this Saturday for Canelo-Fielding.

“I’ll be there front and center on Saturday night – it’s no secret that my focus is on Canelo,” Jacobs said. “There is no other fight in boxing I want right now more than him.

“I did what I had to do and beat Derevyanchenko, a guy nobody wanted to fight and claimed a piece of the Middleweight crown. Now it’s time to unify. I believe that I am the best Middleweight in the world, and he thinks he is, so let’s put it all on the line.”

In recent days, Demetrius Andrade and David Lemieux (who meets Tureano Johnson on the Canelo-Fielding undercard Saturday) have also chimed in, staking their own claims to Canelo. 

A fight with Lemieux—who has a bit of a name and a plethora of exploitable in-ring weaknesses to go along with his fan appeal—might be the smartest choice for DAZN and Team Alvarez if the goal is to put together a winnable, but entertaining Cinco de Mayo Canelo showdown.

Then, there’s the possibility of going to the GGG well one more time and signing a third bout with the Kazakh KO artist. Rumor has it that DAZN is trying very hard to bring Golovkin to their corner of the boxing broadcast world and, if that happens, the world of Canelo-chasing will get even more intense.

The next few months should be interesting. DAZN will be caught between having to protect their investment and deliver intrigue via compelling matchups to their subscribers. Where they find that balance will determine whether their Canelo gamble was a great success or a company-dooming failure.

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