By Rick Reeno

Eric Gomez, VP and head matchmaker at Golden Boy Promotions, has confirmed to BoxingScene.com that a deal was finalized for a Showtime Pay-Per-View collision between former junior middleweight champion Saul "Canelo" Alvarez (42-1-1, 30KOs) and dangerous Alfredo Angulo (22-3, 18KOs), for March 8th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Canelo is coming off a twelve round majority decision loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. from September 2013. Mayweather-Canelo was the most lucrative event in boxing history and generate over 2.2 million buys on pay-per-view.

Angulo is coming off a June 2013 ten round TKO loss to Erislandy Lara, where Angulo had the Cuban boxer down twice before suffering an eye injury that led to the fight being stopped in the tenth. At the time of the stoppage, the fight was up for grabs on the official scorecards - with one judge having Angulo up 86-83 and two others having it scored 85-84 for Lara.

Although the fight is not yet done, negotiations are ongoing to put together an undercard fight between Canelo's younger brother, Ricardo "Dinamita" Alvarez, and WBC interim-lightweight champion Omar "Panterita" Figueroa. Another fight being worked on is a super bantamweight clash between WBC champ Leo Santa Cruz and mandatory challenger Cristian Mijares.

"This fight is going to be fireworks from the opening bell. Angulo is very dangerous fighter and he's very hungry. Before the fight with Lara, the critics thought it would be a mismatch. In that fight, Angulo showed those critics what he is capable of. He had Lara down twice and the fight was on the table when Angulo injured his eye. If Angulo's eye wasn't injured in that round, who knows what would have happened. Canelo has something to prove after the Mayweather fight. He wants to make a big statement. Canelo could have taken a much easier fight. He wanted to test himself against a tough opponent, with a good chin and a very hard punch. I expect a war. I don't think either guy is going to take a step back," Gomez told BoxingScene.com. 

Gomez also confirmed that Ramiro "Purse Bid King" Gonzalez will be a part of the press tour and the pre-fight festivities. Gomez would not confirm if Ramiro would showcase his autographed poster of Mexican promoter Pepe Gomez.

"That part of negotiations was the hard part. But, Richard [Schaefer] has been known to work miracles. We sat down with Ramiro and worked out the details. The numbers made sense and he agreed to join the tour and bring his beloved lucky charm and an old sock that he found at a used car dealership in Tijuana," Gomez said.