Canelo Alvarez (L) will face Austin Trout on April 20 in San Antonio (AP)Canelo Alvarez still has much to prove in the ring, but there is little question that outside of it, the WBC super welterweight champion is one of the sport's biggest attractions. The 22-year-old Mexican ranks with Julio Cesar Chavez and Adrien Broner as the sport's top under-30 attractions.

Alvarez has dreamed for more than a year of a match with Floyd Mayweather Jr., and seemed a perfect fit as Mayweather's opponent for the pound-for-pound king's planned Sept. 14 fight. That is Mexican Independence Day weekend and promoters always try to place a Mexican star on a major card in Las Vegas to leverage the influx of Mexican tourists.

Alvarez, though, lost a standoff with Mayweather. He'd agreed to face WBA champion Austin Trout, and was willing to do it on May 4 as the chief undercard bout to Mayweather's welterweight title fight on Showtime pay-per-view at the MGM Grand Garden Arena with Robert Guerrero.

Cornelius Bundrage and Ishe Smith meet Saturday for the IBF title (Tom Casino/Showtime)For years, Ishe Smith has been among the top boxers in the world, but he never fulfilled the promise he showed when he began his career by winning his first 15 in a row. Despite plenty of talent, Smith was more often than not on the outside looking in when it came to opportunity and production.

He was a guy blessed with a lot of natural ability but without a lot of direction. Things got so bad for him, Smith told Steve Kim of MaxBoxing.com in an emotional and very candid interview, that he contemplated suicide.

[Related: If Floyd Mayweather wants to fight a middleweight, a dream matchup awaits]

Smith told Kim that his life hit a low spot in 2008 and 2009, when he began having thoughts of suicide.

Well, you're not living. It's like you're dead already because you're not even thinking about life during that time. It's like your body is alive and you're here but you’re dead mentally and I think that’s one thing I could be blessed with is to be with sound mind because I was dead mentally

Floyd Mayweather, hanging with Lakers guard Steve Nash, is bigger than big time. (Getty)

Tuesday's news of Floyd Mayweather leaving HBO for a monster six-bout, pay-per-view deal with Showtime created shock waves in the boxing world, but in the afterglow of the announcement it was something else that really stuck out.

Leonard Ellerbe, the CEO of Mayweather Promotions, was expounding on how Mayweather wanted to remain active and participate in fan-friendly bouts that promised excitement. And then he said this:

"Floyd could beat any of them guys, from 140 to 147 and from 154 to 160."

In what is typical of the Mayweather camp, Ellerbe then proceeded to soften the declaration.

"I didn't say he was fighting at [middleweight], just that he could beat all them guys in those weights. We'll see what he chooses to do."

Well, if it were up to Floyd -- who normally fights at welterweight (147 pounds) but whose last fight was at junior middleweight (154) -- he'd probably choose to wait until "all them guys" lost first or beat each other up, but we're more than happy to help with the