Khan vs Alvarez May – Oscar de la Hoya and his Golden Boy Promotions announced this past week that England’s Amir Khan would be the next opponent for WBC Middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. The fight is set to take place on “Cinco de Mayo” weekend, May 7th and it will be the first boxing event at the newly built T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
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Take a look at our latest video blog where we review where the sport books have opened the lines for Khan vs Alvarez.
Khan is a former world champion, having held the IBF and WBA version of the belt at Light Welterweight. This fight is for the Middleweight world title Alvarez holds, and the fight is made with a catchweight of 155 lbs. Khan has never fought anywhere close to this weight before.
Watching all this is Gennady Golovkin, the owner of the WBA and IBF World titles at Middleweight. Golovkin and his handlers have been calling for a bout with Alvarez for a while now. Alvarez appeared to flirt with the idea, but the match was put off for later in the year. Alvarez had insisted Golovkin drop to 155 bs for a fight, despite the Middleweight class topping off at 160 lbs. The most recent thinking had the Golovkin – Alvarez fighting happening late in the year, giving Alvarez time to hone his body for 16o lbs. Now he is fighting a blown up Light Weiterweight at 155 lbs, so the fight does nothing to help “Canelo” for the future.
Khan vs Alvarez May – HBO pay-per-view
Alvarez wants to assume the mantle that used to be Floyd Mayweather Jr’s, and that is boxing’s biggest attraction. Fighting in Las Vegas on “Cinco de Mayo” weekend is a big part of that, and so is fighting on PPV. Mayweather vs Pacquiao did 4.6 million ppv buys this same weekend in 2015. By comparison, the match between Alvarez and Miguel Cotto, himself a considerable draw, was the #2 seller in 2015 with over 900,000 buys. That is a vast difference, and this fight with Khan will not help “Canelo” close the gap.
Khan is an Olympic silver medalist in England, and he is of Pakistani descent, which gives him a vast ethnic audience as well. He is considered to be a draw in the United Kingdom, though he has fought there just twice in the past five years. Though he has gone 7-2 fighting in the United States in high profile positions, his is still best remembered for how stiff he gets and how he loses all footwork when he gets hit hard. Also, he has been calling out Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao for many years now, somehow thinking that he was worthy of a super-fight. Khan was promoted by Golden Boy a for long-time when he fled to the Al Haymon stable. Haymon get him a fight built for him to shine in Chris Algieri, and Khan did nothing noteworthy in the fight. Now he is back with Golden Boy for this one.
What do you think the over/under on the pay-per-view buys should be for this fight? Does Khan figure to bring as much to the table as Miguel Cotto, or does this bout sell less than the 900k plus sales Cotto-Canelo did?
