By Jake Donovan
There was the admission all along that the only way Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez was going to back off fighting on May 2 – the weekend centered around the Cinco de Mayo holiday – was to make room for the long awaited showdown between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao.
True to form, Alvarez’ efforts to reclaim the Mexican holiday weekends – Cinco de Mayo and Mexican Independence Day (September 16th, or the weekend touching it as it relates to boxing events) – were compromised with Friday’s announcement of Mayweather-Pacquiao finally happening.
As the superfight – a joint Pay-Per-View venture between Showtime and HBO - is slated for May 2 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Alvarez has pushed back his ring return by one week, as he faces James Kirkland on May 9 in Houston, Texas. Their bout will air live on HBO, likely accompanied by the rebroadcast of Mayweather-Pacquiao to make the show that much bigger.
If there’s another positive spin to be found on the move, it’s that the fight still takes place four days after Cinco de Mayo, roughly the same amount of separation from the original May 2 date. With that in mind, there’s no reason - Alvarez and Golden Boy Promotions believe – that the celebration can’t extend to both weekends.
“The week around Cinco de Mayo will be the biggest in years for boxing, bridging the present and the future as the three biggest stars in the sport all step into the ring in just a seven-day period,” notes Oscar de la Hoya, founder and president of Golden Boy Promotions.
It was de la Hoya who stood on the front line with the announcement of Alvarez moving back to HBO after a five-fight stint with rival Showtime. Following his loss to Mayweather in Sept. ’13, Alvarez was left to play second to the box office and pound-for-pound king, fighting last March and July while Mayweather’s pair of bouts with Argentina’s Marcos Maidana took center stage on the two weekends boxing spends embracing and celebrating Mexican heritage.
Easily the most popular active fighter out of Mexico these days, Alvarez believed his stamp should be placed on those dates. With that came the decision to walk back across the street to HBO, where he would be free of scheduling conflict, since Mayweather is exclusive to Showtime for at least two more fights.
The showdown with Kirkland will be his first fight since last September’s announcement of fighting under the HBO umbrella. The original plan was to fight last December and then build towards a showdown with Miguel Cotto.
The December bout never happened, as Alvarez claimed an injury in cancelling his planned stay-busy fight with Joshua Clottey. Negotiations with Cotto dragged out to the point where Alvarez and de la Hoya felt the need to move on with the 25-year old’s career.
With that came the decision to face Kirkland, with the idea to win that fight and then move towards fighting in September – a reasonable scenario given that Mayweather and Pacquiao possibly won’t fight again this year, and certainly not that soon after their May superfight.
Until then, the Alvarez-Kirkland clash in Houston will be marketed as the closing act of a week-long Cinco de Mayo celebration.
“It is my hope and belief that this May week will usher in a new era of our sport, one in which we as a sport give fans what they want, the best facing the best,” de la Hoya wishes.
Jake Donovan is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox
