With Victor Ortiz recovering in the hospital from a broken jaw he suffered during his loss to Josesito Lopez, Saul "Canelo" Alvarez is back on the hunt for another opponent for his September fight. Again.
Including Ortiz, three fighters have been lined up, and each fight has been scuttled for one reason or another.
Paul Williams had his career tragically cut short in a motorcycle accident which has left him paralyzed from the waist down. James Kirkland fell to the wayside from a combination of shoulder surgery and ridiculous money demands. Now Ortiz is out, as he couldn't get past the upset-minded Lopez in order to secure his big match against Canelo.
That means Canelo is in search for a fourth potential opponent to face, but luckily, he's not running out of options. In fact, the best fighter he could have faced all along is still available, should the two sides be able to come to terms.
Since Miguel Cotto's loss to Floyd Mayweather, I have been adamant in my stance that Canelo vs. Cotto is not only a match with promises exciting action and major upside for both fighters, but also that each man is simply the top potential opponent for the other. Canelo vs. Cotto makes sense on every level, and would be a bigger and better fight than any of the three which were previously scheduled.
However, it's more likely that Alvarez ends up facing one of the junior middleweight fighters in action on Showtime on June 30, either the winner of the Cornelius Bundrage vs. Cory Spinks rematch, or Erislandy Lara, presuming he gets by Freddy Hernandez -- although nobody wants to presume anything after the Ortiz-Lopez fiasco.
Making matters muddier is the fact that the highly anticipated middleweight title fight between Sergio Martinez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. has been scheduled for September 15th, on HBO pay-per-view, in Las Vegas. Canelo had been set to fight on Showtime pay-per-view, on the same date, and in the same town.
Two competing boxing cards on the major networks on the same night is always a shame, and a signal of boxing's stubborn desire to sabotage itself. This takes things a step further though, and scheduling two PPVs on the same night, in the same city, is ridiculous. Even if Canelo's fight moves off PPV, and to Showtime, or as has been rumored, CBS, it still makes no sense to have these fights compete with one another.
Regardless, Canelo's quest continues for an opponent in September. In the next week, we'll learn more about who it will come down to, with Lara, Bundrage, and hopefully Cotto, all in the mix.
Sources: Showtime Boxing
Jake Emen runs the boxing news website ProBoxing-Fans.com. You can find more of his writing, along with interviews, rankings and breaking news stories at the site, or you can follow ProBoxing-Fans.com on Twitter, @ProBoxingFans.
