Canelo holding out on May 4th

Last month Saul “Canelo” Alvarez went on record saying that he wasn’t interested in being a co-feature to another Mayweather fight. He said that he wanted to do his own PPV, and that the only way he would fight on the Mayweather card on May 4^th would be if the pound for pound champ signed to fight him in September. Well, one month later, and Canelo seems to be staying true to his word.

A week ago Canelo announced that he will be fighting Austin Trout on May 4^th. Apparently, something went wrong since that announcement because Team Canelo is holding back. Maybe he was falsely lead to believe that Mayweather had agreed to fight him, or maybe he was just trusting that Golden Boy would make the fight happen in September and therefore announced his fight with Trout. Whatever the situation, it’s starting to get a little more interesting as Canelo might not be signing the contract to fight on May 4^th. Schaefer is now saying that the hold up with the Canelo-Trout deal being done is that Canelo won’t sign it unless he is guaranteed a fight against Mayweather on September 14^th. Floyd Mayweather is saying that he won’t sign it, so we have a problem.

This one of those situations that goes both ways. On one side, Canelo can make more money fighting on his own PPV vs Trout than being a co-feature on Mayweather, and therefore he is demanding the Mayweather fight because of money he’ll lose for being his co-main event in May. And on the other side we have Floyd who isn’t obligated to do anything, especially for Canelo. Both sides are right, and this is the problem.

Mayweather is no fool. He knows that having Canelo on his undercard is helping his PPV sales, mainly with the Mexican fans. Canelo definitely puts him in a tough spot. Mayweather also knows that he doesn’t need Canelo to sell well. He can at least do one million PPV buys without him, which is still a lot of money for Mayweather. Also, he could move his “little brother” Adrien Broner to the co-main event which may help him boost the buys. Broner would take a lot less money for the co-feature as well.

Canelo thinks that he can do his own PPV and sell pretty well. He’s right too. I’m sure Canelo can do at least 500k PPV buys in June. It may not seem like a lot but it’s a lot more money than he would make fighting on the co-feature of Mayweather. The problem with this is that by holding out he’s trying to dictate terms to Mayweather. If you know Floyd you know that he won’t take kindly to that. In fact, he may scratch a Canelo fight all together just because of this. Mayweather may never fight Canelo if he feels disrespected by what he is trying to do.

I don’t think that’s the case. Floyd is probably looking at this the same way Canelo is. Alvarez just wants to get paid. By holding out he’s trying to make a statement that he deserves his own headliner, and that he deserves a shot at Mayweather. Floyd may understand that. But make no mistake about it. Floyd isn’t going to let anyone dictate terms to him.

Golden Boy finds itself in an odd situation. Having Canelo on the undercard is what they want. Having a Mayweather vs Canelo fight in September is what they want. Yet, at the same time they would make more money having one PPV in May featuring Mayweather-Guerrero and another in June featuring Canelo-Trout, while having the ability to still match them up against each other in September if they both win. It’ll be interesting to see how this ends. I feel like Canelo will give in and fight Trout on May 4^th mainly because of the Cinco De Mayo holiday. Then he’ll take his chances and hope that Floyd signs to fight him in September.