By Keith Idec

NEW YORK – Canelo Alvarez doesn’t know who he’ll fight next.

Determining whether he’ll remain at super middleweight or move back down to middleweight is a decision for another day. The Mexican icon is certain, though, that his next bout will take place May 4 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, the site of four of Alvarez’s past six fights.

Now that he has sold out Madison Square Garden, however, Garden officials are confident Alvarez eventually will want to come back to “The World’s Most Famous Arena” for a high-profile fight. The 28-year-old Alvarez (51-1-2, 35 KOs) was a heavy favorite over England’s Rocky Fielding (27-2, 15 KOs), whom Alvarez knocked out in the third round, yet a capacity crowd of 20,112 attended the eight-bout card they headlined Saturday night at The Garden.

“I think it shows the power of Canelo and how well he’s known,” said Joel Fisher, Madison Square Garden’s executive vice president of marquee events and operations. “I also think it shows how much the people here on the East Coast, in New York City, want to see him fight and specifically wanted to see him fight in New York City.”

Fisher and other Garden employees emphasized to Alvarez and Golden Boy Promotions executives that they hope this was the first of several Alvarez appearances there. The Garden tried to land each of Alvarez’s HBO Pay-Per-View fights against Gennady Golovkin, but MGM Resorts International offered attractive financial packages that Alvarez and Golden Boy couldn’t turn down.

That won’t deter Fisher from trying to land another Alvarez fight, especially since the three-division champion did so well at the gate in his first fight there.

“We’re always interested here at The Garden in the biggest and best fights,” Fisher said. “And that goes for whether it’s sports, entertainment, boxing, everything. I think the fact that Canelo has had a great experience at The Garden – a tremendous experience on Saturday night, with a sold-out crowd, I think that’ll be all the more reason he’ll want to come back here. So, will it put us in the game? We’re always in the game.

“We’re always interested in the biggest and best fights. We don’t do fights just to do fights, and say we had a fight here. We do fights with the biggest and best names in boxing, and that’s been proven in the last two weeks. To close out the year, to have the two biggest stars in boxing fight at The Garden, it’s a real honor for us and a tribute to what The Garden means to these boxers.”

The other star to whom Fisher referred is WBA/WBO lightweight champion Vasiliy Lomachenko (12-1, 10 KOs). A card featuring Lomachenko’s 12-round, unanimous-decision defeat of former champ Jose Pedraza (25-2, 12 KOs) attracted a capacity crowd of 5,312 to The Theater at Madison Square Garden on December 8.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.