Expect record crowd in Arlington to see Canelo Alvarez follow Floyd Mayweather’s style

Arlington and AT&T Stadium will soon set the North American attendance record in a COVID world with an arena full of suckers.

But Mexico loves its Canelo Alvarez, and his native countrymen would follow him to the North Pole to watch him box a polar bear.

That would be far more entertaining, and closer, than what we will see on Saturday night when Canelo “fights” some bum named Billy Joe Saunders at AT&T Stadium in front of an expected crowd in excess of 60,000.

Football players can be named Billy Joe — shoutouts to the great Billy Joe Tolliver of Texas Tech and Billy Joe Hobert of the New Orleans Saints.

Country singers can be named Billy Joe, like Billy Joe Shaver and Billy Joe Royal.

For a boxer, Billy Joe is a Saturday night club fighter who needs to make rent.

Nonetheless, 60K for Canelo v. Billy Joe will be the largest crowd in North America since March of last year, eclipsing the 51,838 who attended the Kentucky Derby.

An attendance figure of 60,000 plus will not, however, be the biggest crowd in our COVID world; that would belong to the Australian rules football match between Collingwood and Essendon on April 25 in Melbourne that featured 78,113.

That will be a better match than Canelo versus Billy Joe. The online betting site Bovada has this fight Canelo -800; that means you need to bet $800 to make $100.

The better investment is to just send me the $800, and the ROI is knowing you helped the needy.

Now 30, Canelo is a proud graduate of the The Floyd Mayweather School of Ducking Opponents.

Alas, Canelo ain’t Floyd in the ring, because Floyd proved that. What Canelo is is Manny Pacquiao, an inferior fighter yet who is yet far better for the sport boxing.

Boxing needs more Canelos than Floyds.

Mayweather is still the worst thing to happen to the modern era of boxing since pay per view.

Mayweather is one of the best boxers who ever lived, and he was a brutally dull fighter whose mission in life is his wallet and to hell with the sport that made him the highest paid athlete on earth.

That is why he will fight YouTube star (which is an actual phrase) Logan Paul in an exhibition bout in June.

Mayweather remains the savviest scheduler who ever lived, second only to former Kansas State football coach Bill Snyder.

When Mayweather took apart Canelo in 2013, the youngster from Mexico was not 23, and not ready to fight an opponent of this caliber.

In fairness to Floyd, Canelo could have fought Mayweather in his prime and the outcome would have been the same.

As my guy, former bantam weight champion Paulie Ayala of Fort Worth, once told me about Floyd, “He made everybody look the same.”

Every opponent, regardless of class or caliber, ended up looking like the same guy against Floyd Mayweather.

That includes Manny Pacquiao, whom Floyd fought, and easily defeated earning a unanimous decision in 2015.

Floyd waited until Pac Man was a little bit older, and then he agreed to one of those “Fights of the Century” that left all viewers sick they wasted the $90 on the PPV charge.

With Floyd now fighting to stave off boredom and irrelevance, that leaves Canelo as one of the sports’ biggest name.

Canelo is not as good as Mayweather, but he’s a more entertaining fighter. He’s willing to throw punches and fight rather than live on avoiding them.

But rather than face an Errol Spence of DeSoto, or Terence “Bud” Crawford, fight fans are left with a plate of Canelo v. Billy Joe.

Canelo is so good there are only a few fighters who can challenge him, and he’s in a prime earning window where he can fight a guy named Billy Joe to fill an arena.

When the money is big enough, they all suddenly figure out their weight differences.

As boxing’s biggest name, Canelo can fight whomever he wants and Billy Joe is both a safe pick and safe bet.

That’s what Floyd did, and now Canelo is, too.

This won’t be much of a fight, but it will set a record.