Canelo Alvarez is coming home next Saturday night to defend his undisputed super middleweight championship against challenger John Ryder on DAZN pay-per-view on May 6th at the Akron Stadium in Guadalajara, Mexico. The Canelo-Ryder event on DAZN PPV begins at 8:00 p.m. ET.
DAZN created a promo video on the fight, but interestingly doesn’t mention Ryder or contain any footage of him. It’s just all Canelo. Poor Ryder might as well be a prop because, apparently, he’s not important enough for him to be included in the promo video.
The pay-per-view portion of the Canelo vs. Ryder undercard is disappointing because there are no compelling fights. In the co-feature, WBC flyweight champion Julio Cesar Martinez (19-2, 14 KOs) defends against fringe 115-lb contender Ronal Batasta (15-2, 9 KOs). Given how bad Martinez looked in his recent loss to Roman Gonzalez, it’s challenging to get excited about this match-up.
Canelo-Ryder PPV undercard
Julio Cesar Martinez vs. Ronal Batista,
Gabriel Gollaz Valenzuela vs. Stevie Spark
Oleksandr Gvozdyk vs. Ricards Bolotniks
Other undercard fights
Nathan Devon Rodriguez vs. Alexander Mejia
Bek Nurmaganbet vs. Argenis Espana
Abilkhan Amankul vs. Fabian Rios Frausto
Johansen Alvarez Suarez vs. Johan Rodriguez Arreguin
Carlos Rojo Vazquez vs. Fabian Trejo Rivera
Jesus Larios vs. TBA
Surprisingly, not much effort has been put into promoting the Canelo vs. Ryder event by the promoters. Some would argue that they’ve decided to save their money in marketing the fight and count on Canelo’s huge fan base to purchase the fight on DAZN PPV, given that it’s taking place on the Cinco de Mayo holiday weekend.
Although Canelo (58-2-2, 39 KOs) is still technically the ‘Face of Boxing,’ but he could lose that position soon to Gervonta Davis if he doesn’t start fighting the opposition that the fans want to see him fight.
The boxing public wants to watch Canelo fight David Benavidez, as that’s the match-up that they’ve been clamoring for.
There was no demand for Canelo to fight Ryder nor 40-year-old Gennadiy Golovkin last September in their trilogy match. Canelo-Golovkin III would have been a great fight if it had happened in 2018 instead of 2022.
The huge interest from fans in that rivalry disappeared due to Canelo making Golovkin wait four years until 2022 before finally facing him again. By then, GGG had gotten old and had ruined his once-high popularity by facing lackluster opposition while waiting for his eventual trilogy with Canelo.