Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez was once offered a nine-figure sum to fight David Benavidez — one of the biggest bouts boxing could possibly make.
That’s according to Benavidez himself, who mentioned the apparent proposal during an interview with the popular Kick and Twitch streamer N3on.
Alvarez has long been a mainstay at the highest echelon of world boxing, winning world champions across four weight classes, beating Shane Mosley, Austin Trout, and Miguel Cotto along the way, before a super middleweight swing that saw him break people’s faces.
And though he was ever-present for years in the pound-for-pound conversations, he never seemed to entertain one of the greatest threats to his dominance, and popularity, by taking on Benavidez — a two-weight champion who is far higher on P4P lists than where Alvarez now finds himself.
During a light-hearted spar, N3on told Benavidez he wouldn’t get in the ring with him for real even for $1 billion. Benavidez seemed to take this as an opportunity to say N3on isn’t alone in that thinking.
“They wanted to pay Canelo $150 million but he didn’t want it.”
It is unclear who Benavidez is referring to when he says an offer was made for Canelo to fight him, however, in a clip DAZN aired when backstage for Ryan Garcia’s disciplined win over Mario Barrios, Benavidez said to Turki Alalshikh’s face that he was powerless to make the Alvarez fight.
“Remember you told me you were going to give me Canelo,” Benavidez told him with a smile. “What happened with that?”
Said Alalshikh: “I want to tell you something. There is something we can do and something we cannot do. Of course I want to see this fight.”
Back to N3on, Benavidez hinted at why he thinks Canelo never accepted the deal. “I’d f*** him up, that’s what I do.”
A fighter who was willing to meet Benavidez in the ring, is the unified cruiserweight champion Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez, who puts his WBA and WBO titles on the line for a Cinco de Mayo clash at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas atop a TBG Promotions card in a PBC on Prime Video pay-per-view.
Should he succeed in his challenge for two of the major belts in the 200-pound division, Benavidez said this week he is targeting big fights only, and laid out a three-fight plan including Dmitry Bivol at light heavyweight, Artur Beterbiev, too, and Jai Opetaia.
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