Canelo Alvarez can claim his biggest victory of 2020 — and perhaps his entire career — and it comes without throwing a single punch.
Alvarez’s trainer, manager and lifelong confidant Eddy Reynoso took to social media Friday and shocked the sports world saying that the Mexican boxing superstar is now a free agent, two months after Alvarez filed a lawsuit with Golden Boy Promotions and streaming service DAZN.
“In my role as a manager and coach of Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez, I allow myself to communicate to the boxing community and to all our fans, that starting today, November 6th, 'Canelo' becomes a free agent, so we are ready to continue his boxing career,” said Reynoso.
“All this time we have been working hard in the gym with a lot of responsibility and discipline, to be in great physical shape and ready to fight this year and it will be! We will announce a date, rival and place very soon, and we will return stronger than ever to keep growing and showing that Mexican boxing is the best.”
Hours after Reynoso’s statement, Golden Boy head Oscar De La Hoya also confirmed his separation from boxing’s biggest breadwinner.
“The lawsuit was resolved to everyone’s satisfaction, and we wish Canelo the best going forward,” De La Hoya said in a statement. “In strong partnership with DAZN, we will continue showcasing our wide array of talent, including rising superstars like Ryan Garcia, Jaime Munguia and Vergil Ortiz Jr., all of whom have the talent and potential to become the next biggest star in our sport.”
A DAZN official told BoxingScene.com "the matter has been resolved to the satisfaction of all parties."
As an unrestricted free agent, Alvarez can now entertain a cavalcade of options at 160, 168 and 175 pounds regardless of network or promotional affiliations. It's a much welcomed move in a sport that frequently doesn’t deliver fights due to fighter alignments. The coming weeks will offer insight into how Alvarez plans to guide his career, and a full assessment of the decision can’t be made till he calls it a career.
According to a report from ESPN, Alvarez (53-1-2, 36 KOs) is now eyeing a Dec. 19 fight with Caleb Plant, a fighter signed with PBC and with network ties to Showtime and FOX. Minutes after Alvarez’s news was made public, Plant posted a picture and captioned it, “fear no man.”
Sources confirmed to BoxingScene.com that Alvarez has been in the gym preparing for a fight with a soft date of Dec. 19. The likes of Callum Smith and Billie Joe Saunders have also been in the running of potential candidates to clash with.
A suitable path for compromise could not be reached by the trio of principles until Friday because Alvarez’s pact with Golden Boy didn’t mesh well with Golden Boy’s separate contract with DAZN. One of key terms that created pause for everyone was that Alvarez, who was guaranteed $35 million per fight, had approval of his opponents, a notion that Golden Boy and DAZN were hung up on several times in the last two years, especially when it came to staging a trilogy and fight with Gennadiy Golovkin.
DAZN officials said they’re still committed to boxing programming globally moving forward. De La Hoya and company will continue their relationship with the streaming service with live events, and its historical archive of fights will be available on-demand. DAZN also features live boxing events from Matchroom Boxing.
Alvarez's absence from the streaming service certainly opens up the coffers for DAZN to spend the money they had tied up with Alvarez on other events.
As of Thursday night, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California had yet to honor Alvarez’s request for free agency. Considering the dynamics and direction of the case, Alvarez’s team had sought free agency for at least his next fight to allow for the four-division champion to mark his return. After Friday’s developments, the legal case has officially been resolved.
On Sept. 8, Alvarez sued Golden Boy and DAZN for breach of contract and fraud seeking damages of at least $280 million. Alvarez claimed in the complaint that he was denied guaranteed payments and suffered lost income as a result of not fighting since last November, when he knocked out Sergey Kovalev in the 11th round to win the WBO light heavyweight title.
The pound-for-pound star was supposed to fight Saunders in May in a super middleweight match, however the fight was never officially announced and it was scrapped altogether due to the pandemic caused by COVID-19.
Alvarez had been aligned with De La Hoya over the last decade. The promoter raised his star in the U.S. and helped make him a commodity worldwide, but their relationship was strained in recent years, soon after Alvarez inked a 10 fight, $350 million deal with DAZN in 2018.
The 30-year-old Alvarez has fought on HBO, Showtime and DAZN during his 15-year pro career and he immediately becomes the most significant free agent the sport has had since Floyd Mayweather Jr., and De La Hoya before him, both left promoter Top Rank earlier in the century.
Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist and member of the Boxing Writers Assn. of America since 2011. He has written for the likes of the LA Times, Guardian, USA Today, Philadelphia Inquirer, Men’s Health and NFL.com. He can be reached on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube at @ManoukAkopyan or via email at manouk[dot]akopyan[at]gmail.com.
