De La Hoya On Canelo Vs. Crawford/Benavidez, Canelo-Charlo PPV Numbers And More

In some recent boxing news, Oscar De La Hoya has given his take on the chances of Canelo Alvarez beating Terence Crawford and David Benavidez.

Following Alvarez’ win over Jermell Charlo, the attention turned towards who his next opponent would be. Crawford has been linked with a fight after expressing his willingness to jump up three weight classes in order to try and become undisputed at 168.

A win would make Bud undisputed in a third weight class. Meanwhile, Benavidez has been the WBC mandatory to Canelo for over a year.

Following his win over Caleb Plant, there were hopes that Alvarez would face the Mexican Monster. Instead, the latter chose to face Jermell Charlo. However, there is a huge enthusiasm to see the fight happen, as De La Hoya weighed in on his predictions.

De La Hoya On Canelo-Crawford

“Obviously, Crawford is the craftier boxer, but Canelo has the size, he has the power, and it’s like [Bob] Arum said, ‘He’ll run right through him. “It’ll be a tough fight, but stylistically. Yeah, it’ll be a one-sided fight for maybe, let’s say, seven rounds, and then Canelo starts attacking, attacking,” said De La Hoya. “He starts to take it to deep waters, and the power will eventually be too much. Will it be a great fight? Will it be a huge event? Absolutely,” De La Hoya

Nevertheless, Floyd Mayweather had shown that it was possible to keep Alvarez at bay by countering him when he came in. And yet, the Canelo that Mayweather fought was arguably not in his prime as he is today.

Alvarez has managed to become a four-division world champion and has only been defeated by Mayweather and Dmitry Bivol. And on top that, the Mexican has never been stopped.

De La Hoya On Benavidez

However, when it came to Benavidez, De La Hoya saw no reason why Alvarez would come out victorious. The Mexican Monster is a lot bigger and more powerful than Canelo as the former has spoken about moving up to light heavyweight at some point in the future.

And that difference in power would prove too much for Canelo to deal with. De La Hoya’s following comments confirmed as much.

“I think Benavidez will win easy. It’s like, for instance, it’ll literally be like Del Hoya-Chavez, it’ll be Benavidez-Canelo, and I think it’s the same age as well.  He’s the bigger guy. So look, I’m not knocking Canelo,” De La Hoya

Canelo-Charlo PPV Numbers

Meanwhile, Canelo Alvarez and Jermell Charlo managed to bring in around 650,000 to 700,000 pay-per-view buys. The fight was ultimately one-sided, with Charlo failing to produce a strong performance that many people were expecting.

The difference in weight was telling as Charlo refrained from engaging with Alvarez, who continued to attack the body. This was shown in the seventh round when Canelo dropped the American.

In response, the American took his time to get up from the count in order to conserve energy. And once that was done, Charlo became more cautious. And yet, those numbers were respectable.

They mirror a similar amount to what Errol Spence Jr. vs Terence Crawford did as that fight sold 700,000. Nevertheless, the response to the fight has been far from impressive. Reporter Chris Mannix had this to say.

“Charlo wants credit for going the distance. He doesn’t get it in my book. He wants credit for not getting knocked out. He doesn’t get it in my book. If you take on a challenge like this, I don’t care if you go up one weight class, two weight classes, or three weight classes, you have an obligation to try and win. People are paying money to try and see you win.

People are spending $85 bucks on pay-per-view to see you try to win, and he didn’t do that. If his career ended tomorrow, this would be the fight that he’s remembered for. By going up two weight classes and challenging Canelo Alvarez, but not really challenging him,” Chris Mannix

Hearn On Charlo

Those comments were backed up by Eddie Hearn, who questioned whether Charlo’s performance had been impacted by the massive payday that he would have received.

The American’s tactics were based on boxing on the outside rather than following up with any combinations to keep Canelo at bay.

That allowed the Mexican to come forward at his own leisure, without having to worry about anything coming back at him. And looking back, Hearn questioned Charlo’s mindset towards the fight.

“I thought Charo was just poor…But it almost looked like Charlo was like, ‘I’m getting,’ 8 million, 10 million, and I was like okay. It’s almost like, ”Let’s not hurt each other in here tonight. We’re just going to get our money,‘ and all the talk about legacy, sticking on the line. A lot of fighters go, ‘I’d rather get knocked out carried out than lose on points,’ but actually, how many fight like that,” Hearn