The backlash Canelo Alvarez receives from fans on social media, angry about his selecting Edgar Berlanga as his opponent for September 14th, could negatively impact his pay-per-view sales for this event.
As Mike Coppinger points out, fans may view the Canelo-Berlanga fight as not worth purchasing on PPV, and they could choose to pirate to watch it for free.
Balancing Mismatches with Challenging Fights
Fans want WBA/WBC/WBO super middleweight champion Canelo (61-2-2, 39 KOs) to fight David Benavidez, not Berlanga (22-0, 17 KOs). Fans see the Canelo-Berlanga fight as a cherry-pick, just like his last one against Jaime Munguia.
If people feel that Canelo will use the remaining fights of his career to fight hype jobs, like Berlanga, they’ll stop spending their hard-earned money on the Mexican star’s fights on PPV.
That’s why Canelo must balance his mismatches with an occasional tough one against someone he’s not expected to beat.
Fighting Terence Crawford isn’t good enough to serve that purpose because Canelo will still be considered the favorite. Crawford would be moving up two weight classes, and few fans would see him as having a chance of winning.
Canelo needs to mix in fights against these types:
– David Benavidez
– David Morrell
– Artur Beterbiev
– Dmitry Bivol
Social Media Backlash and PPV Implications
“Berlanga is going to make a big jump in this. I don’t take social media to be the end-all, be-all, but the backlash I’ve seen on it has been pretty significant where people knew this was coming, the criticism has come in waves,” said commentator Chris Mannix on his YouTube channel about the Canelo Alvarez vs. Edgar Berlanga fight on September 14th. “Is this a sellable fight on any level in your mind?”
Fans don’t view Berlanga as a credible opponent for Canelo because his resume is loaded with horrible opposition, and he doesn’t deserve this fight over fighters like Benavidez.
Canelo shouldn’t have picked Berlanga. He should have picked Diego Pacheco or Christian Mbilli if he wanted a semi-easy opponent. Anyone but Berlanga because he’s viewed as a fake.
“I do think this is one of the examples where social media is rather representative of what the public is thinking at large,” said Mike Coppinger. “It’s just a hard sell. I haven’t seen the odds yet. I imagine Canelo is going to be -2000 or -2500 in that range.”
A lot is going against the Canelo-Berlanga fight. The public hates it, and a UFC event will take place on the same night, September 14th, in Las Vegas at the Sphere. Canelo doesn’t seem to care what the fans think, and that’s too bad because his event likely won’t do well unless Berlanga’s fans in New York purchase the event in huge numbers.
“We all know what’s going to happen on fight night. On the plus side for Canelo, he’s going to get a knockout, I’m sure, finally for the first time since he knocked out Caleb Plant in November 2021,” said Coppinger. I think Edgar Berlanga will sell the fight well.”
Canelo might not get the knockout. He didn’t knock out Jaime Munguia, and he’s the same type of fighter as Berlanga with an identical inflated resume of weak opposition. Canelo took a lot of punishment against Munguia, and it’s pretty clear that he’s nowhere near the fighter he was two years ago when he became the undisputed super middleweight champion.
“He’s charismatic and happy to do media interviews, which is important,” said Coppinger about Berlanga. “Canelo’s not going to have to put the promotion on his back. People watch Canelo Alvarez no matter what. I think where maybe he gets hurt is there are a lot of boxing fans that will buy the PPVs if they think it’s worthy, and they will steal it because it’s quite easy to if not.”
Berlanga will definitely put in a lot of hard work promoting the fight, knowing that the more buys generated, the bigger his PPV upside will be. Still, many fans will choose not to purchase the event due to their lack of interest in this match-up.
“I think we’ll have a big uptick of piracy from what I think people in how they view the fight and how they think,” said Coppinger. “They’ll buy it if they think it’s worthy. What’s really glaring is Benavidez is out there. If Benavidez wasn’t out there, I think it would be different.”
The Importance of Risk-Taking
Again, if fans believe that this is the way it’s going to be for the remainder of Canelo’s career, with him selecting weak fighters that haven’t shown that they rate a title shot, fans will choose no watch or turn alternative methods to see his fights free of charge.
Canelo needs to start taking risks like he used to when fighting Gennadiy Golovkin, Miguel Cotto, Erislandy Lara, and Floyd Mayweather Jr.
“Now, we’re at the point where people are saying, ‘We know he’s never going to fight Benavidez,’ and maybe there’s some backlash and protest,” said Coppinger.
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