Chavez: Canelo Picked Me Over GGG For 'Easier Fight, More Money'

[Ruthless-RKO]

"Chavez: Canelo Picked Me Over GGG For 'Easier Fight, More Money'"

Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. isn’t insulted.

He knows Canelo Alvarez picked him for his next fight because Alvarez considers Chavez a lower-risk, higher-reward proposition than Gennady Golovkin, despite Chavez’s significant size advantage. The enigmatic ex-middleweight title-holder is fine with that now that he has been presented with a lucrative chance to begin changing his damaged image May 6 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas (HBO Pay-Per-View).

“Canelo needs to fight me and I need to fight him,” Chavez said Tuesday before a press conference at Hard Rock Café in Manhattan. “I think this fight happened because Golden Boy flipped a coin. [They think] Chavez is easier than Golovkin and they’ll make more money. That’s why this fight happened.”

“I was very surprised. I never thought this fight would happen because of the weight difference and because Canelo, I think De La Hoya made a good career finding him opponents. This fight, I think it’s a little dangerous for Canelo. After the Lara fight and Mayweather, I didn’t see Canelo take a risk.”

Guadalupe Valencia, Chavez’ attorney, added that without fighting Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs), Alvarez needs Chavez to help re-establish himself as a pay-per-view star following back-to-back pay-per-view events drew fewer buys than anticipated. Though Alvarez (48-1-1, 34 KOs) is listed as a 10-1 favorite, Alvarez-Chavez could emerge as the most successful pay-per-view show of 2017 and will be an enormous event throughout their native Mexico.

“The reality for Canelo’s people is this – his last pay-per-view [did] 220,000 [buys],” Valencia said, referring to Alvarez’s ninth-round knockout of England’s Liam Smith on September 17 in Arlington, Texas.

“His next pay-per-view was gonna be less than that. And so, they needed this fight because it was either Julio or Golovkin, like [Chavez] said.”