Despite Guadalajara’s Hotel Riu being referred to as the “fight hotel” for Saul “Canelo” Alvarez-John Ryder, it’s the considerably more stylish Hilton Hotel where so many of those of significance to Saturday’s promotion are staying.
Tony Sims and Dan Lawrence, Ryder’s trainer and conditioner, cut as relaxed figures as not only their fighter but Conor Benn, another consistently in tow. In the absence of any fight build-up organised by Canelo Promotions – an organisation in its infancy – Ryder, his promoter Eddie Hearn and some of those around him conducted interviews at the Hilton where, perhaps typically, they were enduring the wait a fighter is always confronted with before he can weigh in, rehydrate, and ultimately fight.
If the Canelo Promotions website is an accurate reflection of their potential as promoters, it’s worth recognising that its figurehead – the world’s leading fighter Alvarez – is listed on it as having had a total of 55 fights and one defeat. Six victories and a further defeat are still to be recorded, which, given the obligatory bombast so routinely indulged in by almost every promoter, suggests that they still have much to learn.
Perhaps they didn’t organise any promotional activities for Thursday because they didn’t want those covering Saturday’s fight to miss the email entitled, simply, “Recommendations”. “The list of allowed and prohibited objects for the fight between Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez vs John Ryder,” the email read. It was complemented by four attachments that listed, in Spanish – and two different formats – the 24 prohibited and 13 sanctioned miscellanea. Admirably, selfie sticks were among those prohibited.
ProBox TV chose reading that email over attending the event the WBC had organised at the Hotel Riu on Thursday afternoon. The oversized nature of the model WBC belt placed in the hotel lobby before it started can only have been surpassed by the sanctioning body’s self-importance; the near-orgy they were no doubt hoping to oversee hopefully did not.
