by David P. Greisman

Floyd Mayweather is a 36-year-old who has been in the spotlight for years and will be headlining his 11th pay-per-view in his past 12 fights. His opponent, Canelo Alvarez, is 23 years old, and while he’s been on American pay-per-view shows before, this will be his first time in the main event — never mind one of this scale.

Mayweather, speaking to the media on a Sept. 4 conference call, was asked whether this stage was too big for Alvarez.

“We’ll just have to see. I think it’s a little different from fighting on Floyd Mayweather’s undercards to fighting Floyd Mayweather,” he responded. “I think it’s a lot of pressure, and sometimes when there’s pressure, a guy fights better, he competes better. We don’t really know. We’ll have to see how the fight plays out. “

Alvarez fought on the undercards of Mayweather’s fight against Shane Mosley in May 2010 (Canelo stopped Jose Miguel Cotto); Mayweather’s fight against Victor Ortiz in September 2011 (Canelo stopped Alfonso Gomez in the co-feature, a bout actually held a state away in Los Angeles); and Mayweather’s fight against Miguel Cotto in May 2012 (Canelo outpointed Mosley). He also beat Carlos Baldomir on the undercard to the Shane Mosley-Sergio Mora pay-per-view in September 2010.

Alvarez was supposed to headline his own pay-per-view a year ago, but that bout ended up being moved to Showtime when three different opponents fell out due to injuries. He ended up facing Josesito Lopez. Earlier this year, he defeated Austin Trout on a Showtime card in San Antonio that had announced live attendance of nearly 40,000. Alvarez has been a huge star in his native Mexico for years.

“Hopefully the pressure and everything that’s surrounding the event makes him fight better, because the only thing I want to do is give the fans a good fight, a very, very exciting fight,” Mayweather added. “After this fight I got four fights left, so I’m not overlooking this guy, but like I said, I truly believe there’s a lot of pressure on Canelo at this particular time, yes.”

David P. Greisman is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Follow David on Twitter @fightingwords2 or send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com