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The pair stand face-to-face at a press conference during the summer. AP/Press Association Images
Fight night

Mayweather's date with Alvarez may prove an intriguing match-up

The Mexican may have been given no chance by experts but the Vegas showdown will be the hottest ticket in town on Saturday night.

There is not a lot of love for Saúl “Canelo” Alvarez in Las Vegas. The bookmakers do not fancy him, the experts are not convinced, former fighters likewise, and Floyd Mayweather, his opponent at the MGM Grand on Saturday, predictably has shown him no more respect than he has reserved for all his 44 beaten opponents over 17 years.
Yet there is a parallel oddity: the prevailing view is that this multiple-title world light-middleweight contest could be Mayweather’s most demanding assignment since 2007, the year he just beat Oscar De La Hoya and emphatically knocked out Ricky Hatton after coming through a wild few rounds at the beginning.
Why this is so is largely down to one number: 13. That is the age differential between one of the game’s established legends and a rising prospect who was 15 when he first fought for money in 2005, stopping a similarly callow Abraham González in four rounds in front of a small audience in the Arena Chololo Larios, Tonala, a city on the edge of Guadalajara, not far from where he was born.
That substantial gap in years and experiences represents positives and negatives for both fighters, because there is no evidence yet that Mayweather is in decline at 36, although he will start to slide at some point – maybe in this fight – and, although Alvarez has packed 42 contests into his short career, winning all of them, he has never been tested like he will be on Saturday night.
These are ideal ingredients for selling the fight, because it is blessed with uncertainty. Even hard-core American fight fans, more bloodthirsty than their British counterparts, have tired of one-sided beatings and they delivered their verdict by rushing to the box office to snap up all the 16,000 tickets within 24 hours. The pay-per-view take-up is also expected to delight the promoters, Golden Boy Promotions and Mayweather Promotions, and the TV cheque-signers, Showtime, when they sit down to count the booty.
Richard Schaefer, Golden Boy’s chief executive officer, said: “This fight is so big, even celebrities [who normally are given free admission] are calling to buy tickets. Magic Johnson wanted eight tickets and I had to tell him I don’t have any tickets, not even for him, or for money. I hear the biggest price offered for a ticket was $100,000.”
They refer to Alvarez almost exclusively as “Canelo” rather than Saúl, but not just because it has become his nom de guerre. Canelo, Spanish for cinnamon, has come to define the heavy-handed young Mexican in every aspect of marketing him as a major force in boxing. He is packaged as unique, a Latino redhead. Even Mayweather has fallen in with the joke.
During a workout at his Las Vegas gym this week, Mayweather paused in the middle of a standing sit-up and announced to the gathered acolytes: “I just had a thought; he’s not Mexican, he’s Irish!” It was hardly an original thought, or even that funny, but there was laughter all round. Floyd’s connected inner circle are always ready to laugh at whatever Floyd says, to pick a few crumbs from the table.
More detached voices agree with Mayweather about who is the favourite in this fight. Mike Tyson, who knows more about boxing than how to waste hundreds of millions of dollars, said this week: “I’ve only seen Canelo fight twice – against [Josésito] López and [Austin] Trout. Trout gave him some trouble and he isn’t as experienced and as technically skilled as Floyd is. Floyd stays in tip-top shape and is a very relaxed fighter. He is at his peak.
“It’s going to be hard for anybody to beat Floyd now unless he doesn’t train. Floyd has transcended the game so much that the best fighters out there now try to emulate his style. Floyd wins by a decision.”
Lennox Lewis, who knew too much for Tyson when they fought, and is a fixture on the TV commentary circuit, agreed: “Mayweather will win because of his speed and experience. He’s been at this level before so that will also be an advantage. He’s the best until proven otherwise. Canelo is talented, young, strong and dangerous ?makes it all the more exciting.”
Adrien Broner, who is scarily like Mayweather in swagger and imagines he might one day be good enough to share a ring with him, was one of the few members of the fight community polled by the promoters who thought the bout would not reach the final bell. “Floyd Mayweather will win by KO in the late rounds,” he said.
Alvarez did have one prominent friend. Bernard Hopkins, the 47-year-old IBF light-heavyweight champion and a business associate of De La Hoya, said: “This fight is 50-50. It can go either way. Floyd has speed and wisdom. Canelo is strong and big. This is a massive fight and the outcome will impact both of their careers in a major way.”
And what of the fighter himself? He is quiet, understated and impressively cool. He said, though an interpreter: “I don’t care about his record. I’m not coming to make a good fight, I’m coming to win. When you fight Floyd you have to be ready for every aspect of a fight. You have to be able to adjust mentally as well as physically. I have to be very smart and ready to change my plan at any time. You’ll see how I do it. You’ll see how I beat him. I’m calm and I’m just ready to fight.”
Of the hundreds of thousands of words spent on this fight, those last few were the most intriguing. Has Alvarez got more to offer than we have already seen? Perhaps he has.

This article titled “Floyd Mayweather’s fight with Canelo Alvarez captures the imagination” was written by Kevin Mitchell in Las Vegas, for theguardian.com

© Guardian News & Media Limited 2014

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