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Canelo Alvarez is still a huge attraction, but the pool of viable opponents is getting pretty shallow.
Canelo Alvarez remains boxing’s biggest box office draw, but Saturday’s return to the ring to face Edgar Berlanga hasn’t generated the sort of buzz that makes for a true “mega-fight.” Much of the talk around the bout is about what Canelo will be doing in 2025 and beyond.
The 34-year-old Mexican superstar will be defending three super middleweight titles against the unbeaten Berlanga (22-0, 17 KO), a 27-year-old Puerto Rican New Yorker who was chosen as this weekend’s opponent because of the historic rivalry between Mexican and Puerto Rican fighters.
The fierceness of that rivalry has faded in recent years, but it alone makes Berlanga a more marketable option than anyone else Canelo was possibly going to face on this date.
Coming into 2024, David Benavidez was the most-desired Canelo foe, but he’s now campaigning as a light heavyweight and seems to have thrown the towel in on the idea of facing Canelo. With Benavidez gone, and Jaime Munguia defeated in May, Alvarez had very little by way of options with name recognition.
Berlanga, at least, received a heavy push from ESPN and Top Rank when he started his career with 16 straight first-round stoppage victories. That chain was yanked hard on that hype, though, when Berlanga faced sturdier opposition and started going to unimpressive decision wins. It didn’t take long for Top Rank and Berlanga to part ways, at which point the young fighter signed with Matchroom, angling to land the Canelo money match.
He’s got it, but few are giving him any chance to win. Though Canelo is certainly past his very best days, he is still a proper world-class fighter, and the feeling is that Berlanga simply is not on his level.
What, then, would come next for Canelo in 2025, if and when he dispatches of the Berlanga challenge in the fashion expected? That’s not really enough time for anyone at super middleweight currently to become any bigger of a commercial attraction, and middleweight has been a weak division for some time now, with no clear candidates to rise up in weight and challenge Alvarez.
Canelo has also been pretty clear in negotiations with Turki Alalshikh that he’s not among the sport’s mass of fighters and promoters racing each other to work on the Saudi promoter’s terms. Alalshikh had attempted to put together a big money fight between Canelo and Terence Crawford, a star fighter and pound-for-pound standout who has had just one fight over 147 pounds in his career, and that was at 154, which is still two weight classes south of Canelo.
At super middleweight, you’d be looking at undefeated Christian Mbilli, a 29-year-old Cameroonian-French fighter whose pro career has been based in Quebec, or possibly Matchroom’s Diego Pacheco, who at 23 probably shouldn’t be rushed into fighting someone like Canelo, which could derail his progression as a fighter.
Canelo could also move up in weight. He’s fought at light heavyweight a couple times, but the dark horse option here might be a move to cruiserweight, which has a 200-pound limit. He flirted with the idea a few years ago, and the winner of a November fight between titleholders Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez and Chris Billam-Smith could potentially intrigue him, especially if the money’s there.
Canelo will remain one of boxing’s biggest attractions for the foreseeable future, but the time to see him in the ring is growing limited, as are the attractive in-ring options. Things can change fairly fast, though, so by the time the calendar turns over to 2025, and we’re looking at Canelo’s likely next date in May, there is a chance a real candidate will emerge.
