By Miguel Rivera

Former two division world champion Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez (47-1-1, 33KOs) is very happy that he finally achieved his goal of securing the two lucrative Mexican holidays for his pay-per-view fights.

For several years, Floyd Mayweather Jr. controlled the two valuable dates - Cinco De Mayo weekend in May and Mexican Independence Day weekend in September.

Canelo has been unable to headline either holiday since September of 2012, at least as the A-side of the pay-per-view. He fought and lost to Mayweather, who was the A-side of the equation, in September of 2013.

Since losing to Mayweather, the fighters argued often over which of them deserved those Mexican holidays. There were even moments when Canelo threatened to go head to head with Mayweather, by staging a rival pay-per-view on the same date - but the pay-per-view distributors were always siding with Mayweather when those threats came up.

Canelo's big opening finally came last year, when Mayweather announced his retirement following a decision win over Andre Berto in September. Canelo's promoter, Golden Boy Promotions, quickly reserved Cinco De Mayo weekend - and Canelo headlined the date by knocking out Amir Khan in the sixth round at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

He returns on September 17th, Mexican Independence Day weekend, in a showdown with WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

"The truth is I am very happy to represent these important dates for [Mexicans]. They had always been there for Mexicans, but Floyd was taking them. Everything has its time. He had his time. He was taking those strong dates that were there for [Mexicans]. For whatever reason he was taking them.

"But thank God we now have them and I am very happy to represent my country in such important commitments and I am highly motivated. This one of the things we wanted and I feel very happy."