No trash talk: Mayweather touts experience; Alvarez promise a plan
NEW YORK — Don’t expect Floyd Mayweather Jr. to try and get inside the head of Saul “Canelo” Alvarez leading up to their Sept. 14 megafight at the MGM Grand Garden.
“Why trash talk?” Mayweather asked rhetorically from Times Square Monday, where their 11-city, nine day promotional tour kicked off. “He’s not going to understand what I’m saying anyway.”
Mayweather, 36, who is 44-0 with 26 knockouts, is coming off one of the most impressive performances of his career when he gave Robert Guerrero a boxing lesson in winning a 12-round unanimous decision May 4 following a year off, 60 days of which were spent in jail. Mayweather said he expects to be even better Sept. 14.
“I’ve watched the fight and there’s always room for improvement,” said Mayweather, who will once again employ his father Floyd Sr. as his chief trainer while utilizing his uncle Roger as well. “I’m my toughest critic.”
Alvarez said he expects Mayweather to be better. But he said Mayweather will be fighting a better fighter than Guerrero.
“Guerrero didn’t have a plan when he fought Floyd,” he said through an interpreter. “I’ll have a Plan A, B and C. To beat Floyd, you have to have a smart game plan and we will have a good plan for Sept. 14.”
Part of that plan is to pick Oscar De La Hoya’s brain. De La Hoya lost a split decision to Mayweather when they fought in 2007 and the president of Golden Boy Promotions said Alvarez has what it takes to beat Mayweather.
“Youth is on his side,” De La Hoya said of the 22-year-old Alvarez, who is 42-0-1 with 30 KOs. “Another advantage he has is his intelligence. He’s a very smart fighter and people also tend to underestimate his speed.
“He also doesn’t have a torn left rotator cuff like I did. But I have three letters I’m going to keep repeating to him — J-A-B.”
Mayweather wasn’t about to shortchange Alvarez as a fighter. After all, they’ve got a lot of Pay Per View buys to sell for their meeting on Showtime and Mayweather is astute enough of a businessman not to be bragging about a potential mismatch and discourage would-be buyers.
“He’s a good, young champion,” Mayweather, the WBA junior middleweight champion and WBC welterweight champ, said of Alvarez, the WBC junior middleweight champ who defeated Austin Trout back on April 20 in his most recent activity in the ring. “Obviously, he’s done something so far.”
But that doesn’t mean Mayweather’s in awe of Alvarez and what he’s accomplished so far.
“He’s a young champion; I have a lot more experience,” he said. “I’ve been a world champion the last 16 years. I can adjust and adapt to any situation. Whatever the best thing they do, I can do better.”
The fight will be held at a catch weight of 152 pounds and Alvarez would have preferred to have the fight at 154. But he said he’ll make weight and it won’t be an issue come Sept. 14.
“That’s the way it was negotiated,” he said. “That’s how I had to get the fight, so I accepted it.”
The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency will handle the random drug testing leading up to the fight. Alvarez, who is from Guadalajara, Mexico, will train for the fight in Big Bear, Calif., so reaching him shouldn’t be an issue for USADA. Mayweather, of course, will train in his Las Vegas gym off Spring Mountain Road.
“It will be good for me to be in California,” Alvarez said. “No distractions. We’ll have good sparring partners to work with — mostly guys my size but we’ll have some smaller guys too. I’m excited.”
Tickets for the fight, priced from $350 to $2,000 plus applicable fees, go on sale at 10 a.m. today at all Ticketmaster outlets and online at ticketmaster.com and mgmgrand.com. There’s a two-ticket per person limit on the $350 seats. Mayweather told the New York crowd how he’d love to fight in Madison Square Garden before he calls it quits. Of course, he has been very loyal to the MGM and he was merely being polite to the fans and hope they’ll purchase the pay per view telecast.
But unless New York repeals its state income tax laws, Monday was as close as Mayweather’s Big Apple fans were going to get to him.
“The Earth is my turf,” Mayweather said. “You can put me in any ring anywhere and I’m going to come out victorious.”
Contact reporter Steve Carp at scarp@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913. Follow him on Twitter: @stevecarprj.