What time is Amir Khan vs Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez, live, what TV channel is it on and what are the latest odds? Amir Khan vs 'Canelo' Alvarez: 11 things you need to know ahead of WBC middleweight title fight
This Saturday night (technically Sunday morning at around 2am) Amir Khan and Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez will go head to head in what could be one of the biggest fights of the year.
We've got all the info on what channel it's on, what time it should start, and what's been happening in the build-up right here.
Where is the Amir Khan fight?
The fight takes place in Las Vegas at the T-Mobile Arena, hence why you have to stay up to the small hours to watch it.
What time is the Amir Khan fight?
It's never an exact science with boxing, but the fight should start at around 2am (UK time) in the early hours of Sunday morning. So make sure you get a power nap in on Saturday afternoon.
Alvarez faces Amir Khan in one of the strangest and most unexpected "big fights" in recent memory, one that nobody saw coming and, frankly, has failed to create a whole lot of buzz, in part due to the fact that so many people see it as a mismatch.
Is it a mismatch? Are the promoters selling something nonsensical and even shameful? Let's break down the matchup.
Where/How can I watch the Amir Khan fight?
In the UK, BoxNation TV will be showing the fight, which is channel 437 on Sky, and channel 546 on Virgin.
IF you have Freeview, you'll find BoxNation on channel 255.
How can I watch the Amir Khan fight online?
BoxNation have a streaming service online, although it does cost £12 per month to sign up. But there's no fixed contract, so you could just pay £12 to sign up for one month.
Thoughts: As boxing searches for an immediate answer to its "next pay-per-view attraction" question, Canelo Alvarez has the inside track. He's young, he's Mexican, he's popular, he's a good fighter, and he's been groomed for this spot for the last six years, ever since his first HBO pay-per-view appearance, beating Jose Cotto on the Mayweather-Mosley undercard at age 19.
Four of Canelo's last five fights have been on pay-per-view with him in a headline role. He lost to Floyd Mayweather on a Showtime pay-per-view in September 2013, then headlined two mid-level SHO PPVs in 2014 against Alfredo Angulo and Erislandy Lara. The Angulo fight did very well against expectations; the Lara fight was a mild letdown. After that, he returned to HBO with a fight against James Kirkland in May 2015, and then faced Miguel Cotto in a big HBO pay-per-view headliner last November, scoring the biggest win of his career to date.
Saturday will be a test of Canelo's ability to draw without a truly strong B-side. Amir Khan believes he's a superstar, but there's never really been any evidence of that. He's not been a big gate draw in the United States, nor have his television ratings been abnormally high on either HBO or Showtime over the years. And he's not quite the UK mega-star he tells ignorant Americans that he is, or at least that's the word I've gotten from everyone in the United Kingdom that I know, and they have no reason to lie to me about it. (I wish he were a bigger star, frankly. He's entertaining and gutsy, two things that go a long way with me as a boxing fan.)
Oscar De La Hoya is giving people the impression that this will be a huge hit on pay-per-view, and maybe it will be. Canelo is "taking back" the Cinco de Mayo date for Mexican fighters, or at least that's a working idea, after the first Saturday in May has been owned for years by Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. Going back to 2007, here are the big Cinco de Mayo main events:
2007: Oscar De La Hoya vs Floyd Mayweather (HBO PPV)
2008: Oscar De La Hoya vs Steve Forbes (HBO)
2009: Manny Pacquiao vs Ricky Hatton (HBO PPV)
2010: Floyd Mayweather vs Shane Mosley (HBO PPV)
2011: Manny Pacquiao vs Shane Mosley (SHO PPV)
2012: Floyd Mayweather vs Miguel Cotto (HBO PPV)
2013: Floyd Mayweather vs Robert Guerrero (SHO PPV)
2014: Floyd Mayweather vs Marcos Maidana (SHO PPV)
2015: Floyd Mayweather vs Manny Pacquiao (HBO/SHO PPV)
Alvarez is going in as the favourite, he's had more fights in Las Vegas, yet he's younger than Khan.
Pundits seem to be agreed that Amir Khan's best hope is to take Alvarez through every round and to hope to win on points, but with Alvarez being younger, incredibly fit, and also being a dab hand at KOs, that seems a tall order for Khan.
But he doesn't think so:
“I feel very strong. I think it’s the strongest I’ve ever been for any fight," Khan said to the press.
"I’ve got that extra bit of weight and it has given me an edge in power. The speed is still there as well.
“It’s improved my stability. We’ve had some great sparring partners and training camp has been good. It has been very disciplined. I am sparring 12 rounds with a lot of heavier guys."
When and what time is the fight?
The fight will start at around 2am UK time on Sunday May 8.
What TV channel is it on?
BoxNation TV will be showing this one, and you can of course follow it all with us here on our round-by-round live blog.
Where is it taking place?
The World Boxing Council middleweight title fight will be held at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
What's at stake?
Without being too hyperbolic, pretty much everything. The Telegraph's boxing correspondent Gareth A Davies reckons the fight is boom or bust for Khan, who steps up two weight divisions to challenge the Mexican star Saul 'Canelo’ Alvarez for the World Boxing Council middleweight crown.
Only once in the last eight years has the A- or B-side of the Cinco de Mayo main event been a Mexican or Mexican-American fighter, and that was Robert Guerrero in 2013. Alvarez, though, has been in the co-feature slot on two of these shows, in 2010 and 2012, when he faced and easily defeated Shane Mosley, who made his third straight Cinco de Mayo Saturday appearance against the two top stars of the era and the guy being groomed as their successor, which is kind of an oddity, as an aside.
It's also worth noting that only three of these fights -- De La Hoya-Mayweather, Mayweather-Cotto, and Mayweather-Maidana -- were particularly competitive. (I know some people will swear that Mayweather-Pacquiao was close, but, well, I'm not one of them.)
Is this the start of a new tradition, with Canelo Alvarez taking over this weekend for the coming years? Yeah, probably. I mean, even if he were to lose, he'd probably get at least one more chance to headline on this weekend in 2017.
Will this fight sell the 1.5 million or so that Oscar De La Hoya has said it will? Probably not, but maybe if Mexican and Mexican-American fans are that jazzed on having their guy in the headline slot that it becomes an addition to a big weekend celebration for them, maybe it will. It's not impossible.
As for the fight itself, well, Canelo is the heavy favorite for a reason. He's the naturally bigger man, naturally stronger, a harder puncher, younger, fresher, and a skilled boxer-puncher who doesn't make a lot of mistakes, which Amir Khan, with all his natural speed and ability, historically does. Whether or not this fight is the big pay-per-view hit that the promoters are hoping it will be may depend on whether or not they've convinced the public that Amir Khan is a more serious threat than most pundits believe he is. He's not the best fighter that Canelo has faced, or the second-best fighter, or the third-best fighter, and when you throw in the fact that Khan is fighting at a new weight that may not suit him much at all, it is absolutely a potential mismatch and farce.
What have they been saying?
Khan:
“I feel very strong. I think it’s the strongest I’ve ever been for any fight. I’ve got that extra bit of weight and it has given me an edge in power. The speed is still there as well.
“It’s improved my stability. We’ve had some great sparring partners and training camp has been good. It has been very disciplined. I am sparring 12 rounds with a lot of heavier guys.
What else is on the fight card?
David Lemieux (34-3; 31 KO) vs. Glen Tapia (23-2; 15 KO) Middleweight (160 lbs.)
Mauricio Herrera (22-5; 7 KO) vs. Frankie Gomez (20-0; 13 KO) Welterweight (147 lbs.)
Patrick Teixeira (26-0; 22 KO) vs. Curtis Stevens (27-5; 20 KO) Middleweight (160 lbs.)
Who are you backing?
We won't even go back to early in his career, before he hooked up with Freddie Roach and improved, and matured toward being the fighter he is today, now under the guidance of Virgil Hunter. He's gotten himself into brawls with Marcos Maidana, Zab Judah, Lamont Peterson, Danny Garcia, and Chris Algieri. That last fight against Algieri was a lot harder than many anticipated, and doesn't exactly speak well of Khan's chances against a bigger, stronger opponent. After all, it's not like Algieri is some speed merchant or master technician. He's a capable fighter, but one coming off of a loss to Manny Pacquiao where he was blown out of the ring, and since then we've seen Algieri thrashed by Errol Spence Jr, too. Khan struggled at times with that very same opponent.
Khan does have talent and ability, and that's never been questioned. And it's not even much about his chin, which is questionable, but about his inability to avoid making fundamental mistakes that get him into bad spots. Against Danny Garcia, he got overconfident and knocked out. He got overconfident against Peterson, too, resulting in a controversial loss. And really, he was the same in his fights against Maidana, Paul McCloskey, and Zab Judah, all wins. He scraped past Maidana in a tremendously gritty effort, beat McCloskey in an ugly technical decision, and overwhelmed a faded Judah, but the approach was the same in those fights.
Those all came consecutively in 2010-12, and Khan has since changed trainers and moved up in weight, to frankly mixed results. After an easy tune-up win over Carlos Molina in 2012, Amir stepped over 140 first against Julio Diaz in 2013, and though no one talks about it now, it was not a good showing for Khan against a veteran fighter who had seen better days. Khan barely won that fight, and was dropped in round four.
Since then, he's beaten Luis Collazo and Devon Alexander quite handily, and then struggled somewhat with Algieri. It has not been a great run over 140 for Amir Khan. He's 4-0, but two of those fights were anything but easy for him, and they weren't exactly against the cream of the crop. And now he's moving up to 155 pounds for a fight with Canelo Alvarez? It's not hard to figure out why this matchup has been doubted since it was announced. Khan is being sold as something more than he actually is. If Oscar De La Hoya wants to compare him to Sugar Ray Leonard moving up to fight Marvelous Marvin Hagler, that's Oscar's business as a promoter, but Khan is no Leonard, even if Canelo is also no Hagler. The tagline of Amir Khan being some sort of master boxer is, in a word, bogus, and is not backed up by his career, at least not with any consistency.
This Saturday night (technically Sunday morning at around 2am) Amir Khan and Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez will go head to head in what could be one of the biggest fights of the year.
We've got all the info on what channel it's on, what time it should start, and what's been happening in the build-up right here.
Where is the Amir Khan fight?
The fight takes place in Las Vegas at the T-Mobile Arena, hence why you have to stay up to the small hours to watch it.
What time is the Amir Khan fight?
It's never an exact science with boxing, but the fight should start at around 2am (UK time) in the early hours of Sunday morning. So make sure you get a power nap in on Saturday afternoon.
Alvarez faces Amir Khan in one of the strangest and most unexpected "big fights" in recent memory, one that nobody saw coming and, frankly, has failed to create a whole lot of buzz, in part due to the fact that so many people see it as a mismatch.
Is it a mismatch? Are the promoters selling something nonsensical and even shameful? Let's break down the matchup.
Where/How can I watch the Amir Khan fight?
In the UK, BoxNation TV will be showing the fight, which is channel 437 on Sky, and channel 546 on Virgin.
IF you have Freeview, you'll find BoxNation on channel 255.
How can I watch the Amir Khan fight online?
BoxNation have a streaming service online, although it does cost £12 per month to sign up. But there's no fixed contract, so you could just pay £12 to sign up for one month.
Thoughts: As boxing searches for an immediate answer to its "next pay-per-view attraction" question, Canelo Alvarez has the inside track. He's young, he's Mexican, he's popular, he's a good fighter, and he's been groomed for this spot for the last six years, ever since his first HBO pay-per-view appearance, beating Jose Cotto on the Mayweather-Mosley undercard at age 19.
Four of Canelo's last five fights have been on pay-per-view with him in a headline role. He lost to Floyd Mayweather on a Showtime pay-per-view in September 2013, then headlined two mid-level SHO PPVs in 2014 against Alfredo Angulo and Erislandy Lara. The Angulo fight did very well against expectations; the Lara fight was a mild letdown. After that, he returned to HBO with a fight against James Kirkland in May 2015, and then faced Miguel Cotto in a big HBO pay-per-view headliner last November, scoring the biggest win of his career to date.
Saturday will be a test of Canelo's ability to draw without a truly strong B-side. Amir Khan believes he's a superstar, but there's never really been any evidence of that. He's not been a big gate draw in the United States, nor have his television ratings been abnormally high on either HBO or Showtime over the years. And he's not quite the UK mega-star he tells ignorant Americans that he is, or at least that's the word I've gotten from everyone in the United Kingdom that I know, and they have no reason to lie to me about it. (I wish he were a bigger star, frankly. He's entertaining and gutsy, two things that go a long way with me as a boxing fan.)
Oscar De La Hoya is giving people the impression that this will be a huge hit on pay-per-view, and maybe it will be. Canelo is "taking back" the Cinco de Mayo date for Mexican fighters, or at least that's a working idea, after the first Saturday in May has been owned for years by Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. Going back to 2007, here are the big Cinco de Mayo main events:
2007: Oscar De La Hoya vs Floyd Mayweather (HBO PPV)
2008: Oscar De La Hoya vs Steve Forbes (HBO)
2009: Manny Pacquiao vs Ricky Hatton (HBO PPV)
2010: Floyd Mayweather vs Shane Mosley (HBO PPV)
2011: Manny Pacquiao vs Shane Mosley (SHO PPV)
2012: Floyd Mayweather vs Miguel Cotto (HBO PPV)
2013: Floyd Mayweather vs Robert Guerrero (SHO PPV)
2014: Floyd Mayweather vs Marcos Maidana (SHO PPV)
2015: Floyd Mayweather vs Manny Pacquiao (HBO/SHO PPV)
Alvarez is going in as the favourite, he's had more fights in Las Vegas, yet he's younger than Khan.
Pundits seem to be agreed that Amir Khan's best hope is to take Alvarez through every round and to hope to win on points, but with Alvarez being younger, incredibly fit, and also being a dab hand at KOs, that seems a tall order for Khan.
But he doesn't think so:
“I feel very strong. I think it’s the strongest I’ve ever been for any fight," Khan said to the press.
"I’ve got that extra bit of weight and it has given me an edge in power. The speed is still there as well.
“It’s improved my stability. We’ve had some great sparring partners and training camp has been good. It has been very disciplined. I am sparring 12 rounds with a lot of heavier guys."
When and what time is the fight?
The fight will start at around 2am UK time on Sunday May 8.
What TV channel is it on?
BoxNation TV will be showing this one, and you can of course follow it all with us here on our round-by-round live blog.
Where is it taking place?
The World Boxing Council middleweight title fight will be held at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
What's at stake?
Without being too hyperbolic, pretty much everything. The Telegraph's boxing correspondent Gareth A Davies reckons the fight is boom or bust for Khan, who steps up two weight divisions to challenge the Mexican star Saul 'Canelo’ Alvarez for the World Boxing Council middleweight crown.
Only once in the last eight years has the A- or B-side of the Cinco de Mayo main event been a Mexican or Mexican-American fighter, and that was Robert Guerrero in 2013. Alvarez, though, has been in the co-feature slot on two of these shows, in 2010 and 2012, when he faced and easily defeated Shane Mosley, who made his third straight Cinco de Mayo Saturday appearance against the two top stars of the era and the guy being groomed as their successor, which is kind of an oddity, as an aside.
It's also worth noting that only three of these fights -- De La Hoya-Mayweather, Mayweather-Cotto, and Mayweather-Maidana -- were particularly competitive. (I know some people will swear that Mayweather-Pacquiao was close, but, well, I'm not one of them.)
Is this the start of a new tradition, with Canelo Alvarez taking over this weekend for the coming years? Yeah, probably. I mean, even if he were to lose, he'd probably get at least one more chance to headline on this weekend in 2017.
Will this fight sell the 1.5 million or so that Oscar De La Hoya has said it will? Probably not, but maybe if Mexican and Mexican-American fans are that jazzed on having their guy in the headline slot that it becomes an addition to a big weekend celebration for them, maybe it will. It's not impossible.
As for the fight itself, well, Canelo is the heavy favorite for a reason. He's the naturally bigger man, naturally stronger, a harder puncher, younger, fresher, and a skilled boxer-puncher who doesn't make a lot of mistakes, which Amir Khan, with all his natural speed and ability, historically does. Whether or not this fight is the big pay-per-view hit that the promoters are hoping it will be may depend on whether or not they've convinced the public that Amir Khan is a more serious threat than most pundits believe he is. He's not the best fighter that Canelo has faced, or the second-best fighter, or the third-best fighter, and when you throw in the fact that Khan is fighting at a new weight that may not suit him much at all, it is absolutely a potential mismatch and farce.
What have they been saying?
Khan:
“I feel very strong. I think it’s the strongest I’ve ever been for any fight. I’ve got that extra bit of weight and it has given me an edge in power. The speed is still there as well.
“It’s improved my stability. We’ve had some great sparring partners and training camp has been good. It has been very disciplined. I am sparring 12 rounds with a lot of heavier guys.
What else is on the fight card?
David Lemieux (34-3; 31 KO) vs. Glen Tapia (23-2; 15 KO) Middleweight (160 lbs.)
Mauricio Herrera (22-5; 7 KO) vs. Frankie Gomez (20-0; 13 KO) Welterweight (147 lbs.)
Patrick Teixeira (26-0; 22 KO) vs. Curtis Stevens (27-5; 20 KO) Middleweight (160 lbs.)
Who are you backing?
We won't even go back to early in his career, before he hooked up with Freddie Roach and improved, and matured toward being the fighter he is today, now under the guidance of Virgil Hunter. He's gotten himself into brawls with Marcos Maidana, Zab Judah, Lamont Peterson, Danny Garcia, and Chris Algieri. That last fight against Algieri was a lot harder than many anticipated, and doesn't exactly speak well of Khan's chances against a bigger, stronger opponent. After all, it's not like Algieri is some speed merchant or master technician. He's a capable fighter, but one coming off of a loss to Manny Pacquiao where he was blown out of the ring, and since then we've seen Algieri thrashed by Errol Spence Jr, too. Khan struggled at times with that very same opponent.
Khan does have talent and ability, and that's never been questioned. And it's not even much about his chin, which is questionable, but about his inability to avoid making fundamental mistakes that get him into bad spots. Against Danny Garcia, he got overconfident and knocked out. He got overconfident against Peterson, too, resulting in a controversial loss. And really, he was the same in his fights against Maidana, Paul McCloskey, and Zab Judah, all wins. He scraped past Maidana in a tremendously gritty effort, beat McCloskey in an ugly technical decision, and overwhelmed a faded Judah, but the approach was the same in those fights.
Those all came consecutively in 2010-12, and Khan has since changed trainers and moved up in weight, to frankly mixed results. After an easy tune-up win over Carlos Molina in 2012, Amir stepped over 140 first against Julio Diaz in 2013, and though no one talks about it now, it was not a good showing for Khan against a veteran fighter who had seen better days. Khan barely won that fight, and was dropped in round four.
Since then, he's beaten Luis Collazo and Devon Alexander quite handily, and then struggled somewhat with Algieri. It has not been a great run over 140 for Amir Khan. He's 4-0, but two of those fights were anything but easy for him, and they weren't exactly against the cream of the crop. And now he's moving up to 155 pounds for a fight with Canelo Alvarez? It's not hard to figure out why this matchup has been doubted since it was announced. Khan is being sold as something more than he actually is. If Oscar De La Hoya wants to compare him to Sugar Ray Leonard moving up to fight Marvelous Marvin Hagler, that's Oscar's business as a promoter, but Khan is no Leonard, even if Canelo is also no Hagler. The tagline of Amir Khan being some sort of master boxer is, in a word, bogus, and is not backed up by his career, at least not with any consistency.
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