De La Hoya wants Canelo to fight Spence and Hurd

By Sean Jones

Boxingnews24.com

Oscar De La Hoya says he wants Errol Spence and Jarrett Hurd to move up to 160 to challenge Saul Canelo Alvarez. De La Hoya says Canelo is willing to fight those guys, as well as the Charlo brothers. De Hoya, the CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, says Al Haymon is standing in the way of Spence, Hurd and the Charlo brothers being able to take on Canelo. De La Hoya states that Haymon doesn’t want to make big fights.

De La Hoya seems more interested in Spence (25-0, 21 KOs) moving in weight from welterweight to take on Canelo (51-1-2, 35 KOs) in fight that he thinks would be huge. IBF 147 lb champion Spence has talked of wanting to move up in weight to face Canelo recently. Just how serious Spence is of wanting to make that move is the big question.

It would be a risky move for Spence, because not only might he get hurt, as we saw with Amir Khan moving up from 147 to challenge Canelo in 2106, it could be hard for Errol to return to the welterweight division. Spence would need to bulk up a little to face Canelo at middleweight, and it wouldn’t be easy for him to drop the weight to return to 147 for big fights against Keith Thurman, Manny Pacquiao, Shawn Porter, Danny Garcia and Terence Crawford.

“I love Jarrett Hurd, he’s a good fighter. The Charlo brothers, bring them on,” De La Hoya said to Fighthub. “The only problem that stands in the way is Al Haymon. Al Haymon, you can’t make fights with him. Bob Arum stated that, and he’s been very vocal about it. I want to make those fights happen. Jarrett Hurd, Charlo, all those guys, bring them on,” De La Hoya said.

When Canelo was at 154, he won a controversial 12 round split decision over Erislandy Lara in 2014. Rather than fighting Lara in a rematch to prove to the boxing world that he was the better fighter, Canelo turned around and fought Liam Smith. De La Hoya said at the time that Liam was the best fighter at 154, even though Lara, Jarrett Hurd and both of the Charlo brothers were there. There was no business involved in Canelo fighting Liam Smith instead of the like of the Charlos, Hurd and Lara. It was just soft match-making. Hurd and the Charlos would gladly take a fight with Canelo if it were offered to them, but it’s not being offered.

Hurd and the Charlo brothers would take on Canelo in a second if that fight were offered to them by Golden Boy. There’s big money for those guys in fighting Canelo, and none of them have been involved in huge money fights as of yet in their careers. The Charlo brothers have been pros for 10 years, and they still haven’t tasted the huge money from a fight with Alvarez or Gennady Golovkin.

“That would be a super fight, Errol Spence,” De La Hoya said about a fight between Spence and Canelo. “Spence is always worried about the business and the money. You can make the most money fighting Canelo Alvarez at 160. So come on down. Bring it, let’s do it. Golden Boy and DAZN and boxing is not getting in the way of those fights happening. We want to make those fights happen. Those fighters must have a voice, and speak and make those fights happen,” De La Hoya said.

Spence will obviously jump at the chance of fighting Canelo in the future. Spence is probably going to stay at welterweight for the next two years or so before he moves up to 154 to campaign in that weight class. There’s no one at 154 unfortunately for Spence to fight. He might need to skip the 154 lb division and go straight to middleweight.

Canelo is one of the handful of fighters that doesn’t think about business first,” De La Hoya said. “You don’t think about business first. You think about legacy. You think about the fights first, and then money will come and then the business will come. The issue with a lot of the fighters is they want to think about the business first, and then the fights. The way you make a legacy for yourself is to focus on the job at hand, the training, and then the fights for your career, and then the business will come,” De La Hoya said.

It’s easy for De La Hoya to say that Canelo doesn’t think about business first, because he just got a huge $365 million contract with DAZN. When you hit the lottery, you’re definitely be free to do things that normal people that are struggling to survive wouldn’t have the time or the inclination to do. De La Hoya lecturing on fighters thinking about the fights first doesn’t mean much, because he and Canelo are on a different spectrum than normal fighters.