Canelo Alvarez has already admitted he would be open to fighting Jake Paul but only when his professional career is said and done.
Paul called out Canelo after defeating a 58-year-old Mike Tyson last week and has the Mexican superstar at the top of his hit list.
“Canelo needs me, so I’m not even going to try and call him out,” he said post-fight.
“He knows he wants a payday. So, he knows where the money man is at…
“He’s going to want a payday and I want to show the world all the [stuff] I’ve been talking about beating Canelo is true and I’ll have the biggest upset in the history of boxing.
“We’ll fight to really see who is the face [of boxing] because, after this event, I’m going to be claiming it.”
Canelo is the current reigning WBC, WBA and WBO super middleweight world champion and is fully focused on defending his belts against world-level opponents at present.
However, the former pound-for-pound king insists he would consider a fight with Paul once he hangs up his gloves.
“When I’m done with boxing [at the highest level], why not? Yeah, maybe,” he told the Full Send Podcast last year.
“I think it’s good cause what happens is other people who never watch boxing, they don’t know anything about boxing, they want to watch Jake Paul because he brings fans from another world. Maybe [I’ll take the Paul fight].”
Despite Canelo’s insistence that he would only take on Paul once he is retired, ‘The Problem Child’s’ manager Nakisa Bidarian claims the crossover clash is ‘absolutely’ a possibility for 2025.
“We just put on the biggest event since the advent of cable for combat sports,” Bidarian told the Ariel Helwani show earlier this week.
2
“And so no matter what fighter you are, you have to look at that and say ‘That is a pretty special moment, that is a pretty special platform’.
“Jake Paul doesn’t need Canelo from a fan perspective nor from a belt perspective because they are not going to fight for the belts Canelo holds.
“Canelo certainly doesn’t need Jake Paul to make money either.
“For me, it has to be more than that. It has to be a desire to once again have the world stop and pay attention to this beautiful sport of boxing.
“Have the world look at it and say ‘Wow! Boxing is back’… the hurdle is not money.”
If Paul and Canelo were to fight it would likely be at cruiserweight.
Canelo previously spoke about moving up to 200lbs to face former WBC world champion Illunga Makabu in 2022 but it never came to fruition.
