Ladies and gentlemen, the big fight weekend has arrived.
Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez will end months of promotional build-up and weeks of premium cable sniping on Saturday night, when they meet in the ring at the MGM Grand for both a pair of 154-pound titles and the enviable position as the sport’s top drawing card.
The fight was initially announced in the spring, shortly after Alvarez had improved to 42-0-1 with a defeat of previously unbeaten Austin Trout and Mayweather scaled to 44-0 after a 12-round clinic against former two-division world champion Robert Guerrero.
The men faced off in 10 cities during a two-country press tour, then appeared in dueling video segments during the four-part Showtime All Access documentary series, which ended Wednesday.
The official weigh-in for the fight, at which both men contractually agreed to arrive at 152 pounds or less, is scheduled for today at 6 p.m. ET. The fight card will begin Saturday at 5:30 p.m. ET, with the Showtime pay-per-view broadcast set to open at 9 p.m. ET.
Big numbers are expected for the event, which could approach the record of 2.4 million buys set when Mayweather fought the since-retired Oscar De La Hoya in May 2007.
“It’s hard to predict where we’ll end up on this fight,” said Stephen Espinoza, Showtime’s top boxing executive. “De La Hoya/Mayweather was a perfect storm. Oscar was at the peak. Floyd was just starting to make a lot of noise. You had the perfect good guy/bad guy storyline. It’s hard to replicate that.
