Canelo Alvarez may be postponing his upcoming fight, but DAZN is willing to wait a little longer for the unified middleweight champion to return to the ring.
It’s been common knowledge that Alvarez was planning to fight on September 14, which fell on the weekend of Mexican Independence Day, something he has done for several years, including the last three years. But with difficulties finding an opponent, Golden Boy Promotions announced that Alvarez will instead fight later this year. In response to the sudden announcement, DAZN’s John Skipper spoke with The Athletic and said the following.
“We continue to work toward putting together a compelling annual schedule for fight fans. It would be premature to comment on our plans until we finalize the remaining cornerstones of the 2019 calendar. Canelo is extremely important to DAZN. His first two fights with us generated significant subscription growth for our service and we’re excited to see him back in action later this year,” Skipper said.
There had been attempts in trying to find an opponent for Alvarez, who holds the WBA and IBF middleweight titles. First, there were negotiations between Alvarez and Golovkin about possibly staging a trilogy fight in September, but after several issues, the fight has appeared to have fallen through.
Then, there were failed negotiations with Sergey Kovalev that would have had Alvarez go up two weight classes and challenge for Kovalev’s WBO light heavyweight title. That fight also fell through after Kovalev’s camp was unhappy with the offers being sent to them and thus, Kovalev will now face mandatory challenger Anthony Yarde next month in Russia.
