Canelo Alvarez turned down $1million Floyd Mayweather fight aged just 18 and made far more when it happened five years later
Canelo Alvarez has now revealed that he was first offered the Floyd Mayweather fight five years before it ended up taking place.
In 2013, when he was just 23, the Mexican star stepped into the ring with boxing's pound-for-pound king at the time and was comprehensively outclassed.
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Despite Mayweather beginning to age and being 36 at the time, Canelo's inexperience at elite level was clear as he was outboxed and lost on points.
However, Canelo has now divulged that he was actually first approached about the fight even earlier.
"They offered me the fight when I was 18," Canelo told , "They offered me $1million to fight him.
"At the time I was earning 100,000 pesos - that's $5,000. I was still getting the bus and I had three jobs.
"I told Eddy Reynoso, 'It's $1million, this would help me a lot.'
"Eddy said, 'You're not going to fight. In a few years, you will receive 10x that amount.’ That’s what happened."
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Canelo's trainer Reynoso's words proved prophetic as Mayweather vs Canelo became a huge fight when it happened in 2013.
The Mexican built his record to 42-0-1 before stepping in with his American foe and made a name for himself in the USA prior to the contest.
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As a result, he earned a guaranteed $5million (with millions more later coming his way due to the PPV success as the fight generated 2.2million buys in America).
Mayweather was of course still the A-side of the event and so had a far greater $41.5million guaranteed purse, also earning tens of millions more through PPV sales.
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Golden Boy's Richard Schaefer explained at the time: “He [Canelo] will end up making more than $5million.
"He is going to make a significant upside because of the pay-per-view.
"It doesn’t matter that he is getting $5million, because he will make millions and millions more because I guaranteed him money on the pay-per-view, but I don’t want to say how much.”
Even though he was unable to beat Mayweather when they met, there's no doubt Canelo did the right thing financially by rejecting the first offer when he was just 18.
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