Eric Gomez: Canelo wants to fight, take advantage of his prime years

Canelo Alvarez still hasn’t settled on an opponent for his expected September return, but Golden Boy president Eric Gomez tells Sky Sports that it very well could come against a British fighter, such as Callum Smith or John Ryder. Of course that really all depends on the state of the world by this fall, as Gomez admits that it’s not really easy to bring fighters overseas due to current visa restrictions.

Gomez would go on to say, however, that all of the short-list opponents for Canelo are top-ranked fighters, adding that Canelo’s goal has always been to fight the best. That said, there are even more concerns on how to make a fight like that viable without a live gate, which remains a significant hurdle for the sport as a whole.

“The big concern that he has is the protocols. If he fights in September, there will be no fans. We are in communication with him and soon he will make a decision - does he want to fight without fans or wait until there is some sort of normalcy again?

“Canelo is a young man in his prime years and he wants to take advantage of the fact that he can still fight at a high level. To take a year off would be very damaging in his prime. That is the motivation.”

Either way, Canelo won’t be receiving the same kind of money he’s accustomed to, according to Gomez, who says the world we’re currently living in isn’t the same as it was last year and that Canelo will indeed be taking a significant pay cut for his next outing.