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Madison Square Garden Lands Dec. 15 Canelo Alvarez Fight

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Madison Square Garden Lands Dec. 15 Canelo Alvarez Fight

Props go out to Canelo Alvarez, the Mexican middleweight who is getting back on the horse right quick.

Canelo got the W, according to the judges who watched him and GGG got at it in Las Vegas on Sept. 15, and really, that’s what most matters. And though he could of course coast, take time off, rest up and get recreation, the battler is wanting to glove up again. To that end, Canelo will travel to NY, and look to conquer the media capital of the world in the most venerable arena in the world, Madison Square Garden.

Promoter Golden Boy threw a minor curve ball at us; we heard that Canelo (age 28; 50-1-2) would be scrapping with Canadian David Lemieux. Nossir; Brit Rocky Fielding gets the call, and he will bring his WBA super middleweight (168 pounds) strap with him on Dec. 15.

Fielding is 27-1, age 31, and calls Liverpool his birthplace. He snagged the strap off Tyron Zeuge in July, scoring a stoppage. Yes, this is curveball call from Canelo, who wasn’t keen to go all in to 160 a year and a half ago. But apparently he feels bodily that he can make to leap to 168.

We reached out to Golden Boy Promotions’ Eric Gomez. He told us that TV/stream platform isn’t cemented. Will it be HBO, Canelo’s home for the last several years? “We will see,” Gomez said.

Read into this what you will, but Fielding is a Matchroom/Eddie Hearn boxer. You probably know Hearn has that output deal with DAZN, and has been signing talent to fill the streaming slate for DAZN, the new subscription service. Would he like to be able to boast Canelo to go with Anthony Joshua as his center piece diamonds? That’s a rhetorical question.

Another note: this will be Canelo’s first foray into an NYC arena. He has gloved up in Mexico, Cali, Texas and Vegas. Doing the NY scene is meaningful, because that will scoop him up that much more press attention in the media capital of the world.

Founder/editor Michael Woods got addicted to boxing in 1990, when Buster Douglas shocked the world with his demolition of the then-impregnable Mike Tyson. The Brooklyn-based journalist has covered the sport since for ESPN The Magazine, ESPN.com, Bad Left Hook and RING. His journalism career started with NY Newsday in 1999. Michael Woods is also an accomplished blow by blow and color man, having done work for Top Rank, DiBella Entertainment, EPIX, and for Facebook Fightnight Live, since 2017.