Lederman: De La Hoya of 2007 Tougher Opponent For Mayweather Than Canelo

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Boxing has its super fight of 2013. Last Wednesday, both Floyd Mayweather and Canelo Alvarez took to their twitter accounts and tweeted that they would be fighting one another on September 14th in Las Vegas on Mexican Independence Day weekend, one of boxing’s prime weekends to stage events.

Both men are coming off decision victories. Canelo won a close decision over Austin Trout and Mayweather soundly defeated Robert Guerrero. Canelo was set to return September 14th, with or without Mayweather and most boxing insiders thought that Mayweather would not return as he has not fought twice in a year since 2007. Oddly enough that was the year Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather broke records with the highest grossing pay-per-view in the history of the sport. While Mayweather and Alvarez are not expected to 2.4 million buys, it isn’t far-fetched that this pay-per-view could do close to 2 million buys.

Harold Lederman, retired judge and longtime unofficial judge at ringside for HBO was a recent guest on ThaBoxingVoice radio show. He was there live at De La Hoya-Mayweather scoring the fight for HBO. He feels that Mayweather had a tougher opponent in front of him in 2007, then the one he will be facing come this September.

 “At this point in their careers I say the experience and the talent, the 2007 Oscar De La Hoya who faced Floyd Mayweather is better than the Canelo Alvarez we saw against Austin Trout, and the one we will see come fight night. And maybe that’s me being a little biased because Oscar has always been one of my favorite fighters to watch,” Lederman told ThaBoxingVoice.

While this is the fight many fans wanted to see Mayweather take next, there are some who frown upon the 152 lb catch weight, especially because Mayweather has called Manny Pacquiao the catch weight king and has thrown jabs at the Pacquiao camp by stating that he (Mayweather) fights fighters at their ‘comfortable’ weight. Lederman doesn’t think it’ll make a difference.

“2 lbs, it really shouldn’t make a difference when you’re 23 years old, like Canelo will be in a few months. Now if you’re an older guy like me, then yes it would make a difference but if he agreed to it, I think they know what they’re doing. And again he’s a young kid, so 2 pounds really shouldn’t be a difference.”

This fight will take place on the rival network of HBO, Showtime Pay-Per-View. Both Mayweather and Canelo were staples of the HBO boxing programming and in a sense were built on the HBO network. Come September 14th, it will be the biggest boxing event since the 2007 De La Hoya-Mayweather fight. Networks loyalties aside, Lederman like the rest of us, will be watching.

“It’s a grand event. It’s a great fight and I’ll definitely be watching even if it’s not on our network.”