Mayweather vs Pacquiao: Lampley, Bernstein, Jones reportedly will call fight for HBO and SHO
February 21, 2015Mayweather-Pacquiao At 147, Three Belts At Stake
February 21, 2015
Canelo Alvarez wanted May 2, but he’s been pushed to May 9 because of Mayweather-Pacquiao.
The scheduled May 2 fight between Canelo Alvarez and James Kirkland will move to May 9, according to Chris Mannix, who also says that nobody involved had any issue with having to change their date, given the circumstances (the circumstances being the official announcement of Mayweather-Pacquiao, of course).
Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KO) badly wanted to fight on the May 2 date in an effort to “reclaim” the Cinco De Mayo weekend for Mexican boxing, and aggressively pursued a fight with Miguel Cotto in order to have the best chance at pushing Floyd Mayweather off of the date, though Mayweather has intended on fighting on this date since his last bout in September.
When negotiations with Cotto fell apart, Kirkland (32-1, 28 KO) was drafted in quickly as a replacement, and the deal was done in a matter of days. It’s a terrific fight on paper, matching Canelo with a highly dangerous, explosive power puncher, but it’s certainly no Mayweather-Pacquiao, and with HBO involved in that fight as well, it obviously makes no sense for them to run a fight on HBO while they’re also trying to sell what will likely be the biggest PPV fight of all time. So this fight gets bumped, and it’s another Saturday night with a good fight. Hard to complain.
