In the second episode of Showtime's All Access series that aired last Saturday night (full episode here), Floyd Mayweather's business partner Leonard Ellerbe said that their team simply took advantage of inept management representing Canelo Alvarez, agreeing to go with their idea to fight at a catchweight beneath 154 pounds.
Watching Ellerbe say that in the above clip from this weekend's coming third episode of All Access, Alvarez takes issue with the statement.
"That's a complete lie. They wanted me to drop weight," Canelo says. "They were the ones crying about weight."
"Makes us laugh," he continues. "It's just talk. Pure talk. They know very well that they're the ones that wanted the fight at this weight."
Another member of Team Alvarez then chimes in, "Ellerbe is so smart, he had the supposed best pound-for-pound fighter go up five pounds."
The same team member then remarks, "Look how agitated they got me." That may, in fact, be the point. But it doesn't seem to weigh too heavily on Canelo, who just goes about his business and has a light snack.
This is all sort of back-and-forth stuff, though. Here's the situation as I think I recall it happening, but correct me if I'm wrong: Mayweather didn't want to fight Alvarez at 154 pounds. This flew in the face of his constant "I don't fight at catchweights" stuff, which was always a dig at Manny Pacquiao for fighting a couple of catchweight bouts with Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito. Canelo's team, I believe, did offer publicly to do it at a catchweight. So then the 152-pound deal was made. Ellerbe isn't really wrong in saying that Alvarez's team offered the weight so they took advantage of that, but he's probably overselling the "we took advantage" part and ignoring that they didn't want to fight Alvarez at 154. That, or he's exactly right, and they goaded Alvarez into giving up a couple of pounds. But that's not quite what he's saying. Either way, it's Ellerbe making Mayweather sound like a crafty ol' genius, and Canelo's basically saying that this is the only way the fight would get done. It's just about spin.