Mayweather: If Canelo-Cotto think they can compete [for my dates], then let’s see

WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr (47-0, 26 KOs) is welcoming World Boxing Council (WBC) middleweight champion Miguel Cotto and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez to try and fight on the same dates as him in 2015 in May and September.

Mayweather feels that his pay-per-view numbers are better than those two fighters, and he believes he’s the guy that boxing fans will want to see if they have a choice to pick between which pay-per-view event to see if they’re competing on different networks.

Canelo has already given Golden Boy Promotions president Oscar De La Hoya his marching orders that he needs to schedule him to fight on Cinco de Mayo on May 2nd in 2015. Canelo says that’s a Mexican date and he plans on taking it. He doesn’t care if Mayweather fights on the same night on Showtime pay-per-view. Canelo’s fight with Cotto, if they can negotiate the fight, will be on HBO PPV.

“If they feel like they can compete, well then let’s see,” Mayweather said to Fighthype.com. “When you’re talking boxing, you’re talking Mayweather, man. We need to take Canelo’s last fight and look at his pay-per-view numbers and take Cotto’s last fight and look at his pay-per-view numbers, put ’em together and see who done better numbers. And see what they charge for the fight also.”

Canelo really doesn’t have the pay-per-view numbers to challenge Mayweather for his dates, and neither does Cotto. Both of them are fighters that recently brought in around 300,000 PPV buys, and that’s obviously far off from the numbers that Mayweather brings in. It tells you that Cotto and Canelo aren’t crossover stars yet like Mayweather.

Cotto would be making a mistake if he agrees to Canelo’s idea of challenging Mayweather for his May fight. The PPV numbers for Cotto-Canelo will likely be far fewer than they would have been if they didn’t have a monster boxing star like Mayweather to compete against.

With Canelo, he’s young enough to make back the money he won’t be getting by challenging Mayweather for his May date. But with Cotto, 33, it doesn’t make sense for him to take a risky fight against Canelo if it’s going to mean that the PPV numbers are going to be less than what they would have been if they’d fought on another date.

I doubt that Cotto is as emotionally invested in trying to take Mexican holiday dates from Mayweather as Canelo is, because Cotto is Puerto Rican and it’s probably not something he’s going to mess with. Canelo might want the May 2015 date, but it’s likely that Cotto will say no to the idea if it means that they’re going to be competing with Mayweather on the same night.