Canelo-Chavez headed to T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas

The May 6 HBO pay-per-view fight between Mexican stars Canelo Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr has found a home, as the bout is headed to T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Canelo (48-1-1, 34 KO) and Chavez (50-2-1, 32 KO) will meet with a catchweight of 164.5 pounds, a curious and already roundly mocked decision given the Alvarez camp’s past claim that he wasn’t yet big enough to face Gennady Golovkin at the full middleweight limit of 160.

But Chavez, 30, isn’t Golovkin, and the fight is going to make money, as both have major name value, even with Chavez having not been in a significant fight in almost two years, when he was hammered into submission by Andrzej Fonfara.

Alvarez, 26, fought at T-Mobile Arena last May, when he knocked out Amir Khan in a predictable fight, though one entertaining in a vacuum, at least. Chavez has won his last two, struggling past Marcos Reyes in July 2015, and routing Dominik Britsch in Mexico this past December.

Even with our (or at least my) obvious amusement at this matchup, as noted before, this is going to make money, and should have a great atmosphere in Las Vegas. So at least there’s that.

Plus, if you take them at face value, Alvarez’s team has said in the past that the plan is to fight Golovkin in September 2017. A win over Chavez is necessary to get there.