Canelo vs Jake Paul looks like it’s really going to happen on May 3.
Canelo Alvarez and Jake Paul look like they’re really, actually going to fight in real life.
ESPN.com’s Mike Coppinger is reporting that a deal is being “finalized” for a May 3 fight at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Canelo would be moving up to cruiserweight to face the social media star and hobbyist boxer in what would be, by many degrees, the toughest test of the 28-year-old Paul as an actual boxer.
Paul (11-1, 7 KO) is without question a box office attraction, and has been saying he wants to fight Canelo (62-2-2, 39 KO) for years now. It always seemed unlikely, but he may be getting his wish.
The 34-year-old Canelo is also tentatively slated to face Terence “Bud” Crawford in a 168 lb championship fight in September, which could really be the most intriguing thing about the Canelo vs Jake Paul matchup, other than the curiosity of it all, and the hope of many “real boxing” fans to see Canelo potentially decimate an amateur who has feasted on non-boxers and grandfathers to date.
What will Canelo weigh to fight Jake Paul? Even if the limit is something like 185 lbs and not a full 200, Canelo would probably come in north of the light heavyweight limit of 175 lbs, and turning around four-ish months later to get back to 168 on the scales to face Crawford could be an issue. That sort of thing has absolutely bitten great fighters in the past.
As for the fight itself, the real intrigue may be the idea of Canelo “entertaining” and “carrying” the fight, as many felt we saw with Floyd Mayweather vs Conor McGregor and Tyson Fury vs Francis Ngannou, the latter nearly going disastrous for Fury. Or would Canelo take no risks and leave no questions, as we saw when Anthony Joshua absolutely demolished the aforementioned Ngannou?
And hey, is there some great surprise in Jake Paul? And will Netflix actually be able to handle the live streaming demand this time around, unlike the catastrophic attempt for Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson?
Read the full article here
