LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - MAY 03: Canelo Alvarez poses on the scale during his official weigh in against ... [+]
When it comes to the business of professional boxing, to say there are a lot of moving parts would be an understatement. In the past week, there has been a lot of drama surrounding Canelo Alvarez, Golden Boy Promotions and DAZN. It all started when Canelo was stripped of his IBF middleweight belt for failing to reach a deal with mandatory challenger, Sergiy Derevyanchenko.
So Canelo was upset. He'll get over it. He'll have 35 million reasons in his next fight, no matter who it's against to help soothe the pain of being stripped of the IBF strap.
The truth of the matter is that it really doesn't matter. Whether Canelo has a belt or no belt at this time, thanks to social media, we know exactly what the fans want to see and why DAZN, who has been criticized in this situation, is simply looking to provide the fans with the best possible matchups in its ecosystem.
The other item at play here, which is too long to get into for the purposes of this story, is to deconstruct and explain the purpose of the mandatory and the actual process that takes place prior to a fighter being stripped. The casual boxing fan doesn't understand this and after reading a lot of what I read via tweets and stories within the boxing media, there are still plenty of journalists that don't understand how the process works either. In short, the purpose of the mandatory is to provide a title shot to fighters that due to many reasons, would never receive one. With that being said, ample time is given by the IBF in addition to extensions if needed and then a purse bid is called. In this case, the deadline had passed for Canelo to continue to negotiate in good faith, so the IBF moved on and stripped Canelo, immediately ordering the next available contender to face Derevyanchenko, which is Gennady Golovkin.
With all that being said, title or no title, Canelo is the biggest name in boxing right now and fans won't be concerned whether or not he is defending the IBF title. What this can do however, is get Canelo closer to a more meaningful fight.
Tracy David, the Chief Marketing Officer for social analytics platform ListenFirst had this to say regarding the current situation,
For DAZN, the IBF stripping Álvarez of his middleweight title might be a blessing in disguise. Unless it's a huge underdog victory like Andy Ruiz Jr. beating Anthony Joshua, DAZN benefits the most from having big name boxers square off against each other, and the social media data clearly shows IBF mandatory challenger Sergiy Derevyanchenko does not have a significant fanbase online. While Demetrius Andrade has a larger following and is a step in the right direction, boxing fans Twitter is pretty clear that the fight they really want to see is Canelo Álvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin III.
THE PEOPLE ARE SPEAKING (OR TWEETING AT LEAST)
Top insights around Canelo losing his IBF title show that between August 1 at 10pm EST to August 2, 2019 there were 5,096 tweets mentioning the IBF. The top performing tweet was from Canelo who generated 2,619 responses around his tweet complaining that the IBF unfairly stripped him of his belt. The Spanish version of that tweet generated 1,644 responses.
There's no question that Demetrius Andrade is a higher profile opponent than Sergiy Derevyanchenko for Canelo to face. For instance between January 1 and August 1, 2019 there were 21,360 tweets mentioning @BooBooAndrade, the official Twitter handle for Demetrius Andrade compared to 1,292 tweets mentioning @SDerevyanchenko which is the Twitter handle for Sergiy Derevyanchenko. As of August 2, Demetrius Andrade has 141,582 followers across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter while Sergiy Derevyanchenko has 20,257 followers across those three platforms.
ALL ROADS LEAD TO GGG
Overall, neither Andrade or Derevyanchenko are the potential Canelo fight fans were most looking forward to. Between January 1 and August 1, 2019 there were 55,156 tweets mentioning both Canelo and Golovkin. In comparison during the same time period, there were 11,398 tweets mentioning both Canelo and Andrade and 3,870 tweets mentioning both Canelo and Derevyanchenko. With Canelo vs. Golovkin ending in a controversial split draw and the rematch ending with Canelo winning by decision, the audience is the most interested in seeing how the third go around would end.
How much did Canelo holding the IBF title matter to fans? Of the 645 posts Canelo put on social media between August 2, 2018 and August 1, 2019, the top performing one was an Instagram picture where he showed off the WBC, WBA and IBF hardware he earned, which generated 778,866 responses and 770,589 Reactions.
Meanwhile the subject that gets fans talking the most around Canelo is Golovkin. The content that Canelo posted between August 2, 2018 and August 1, 2019 that generated the most comments was an Instagram Gallery where he thanked his team on the day before the Golovkin rematch, which generated 28,321 Comments.
In the last year, the top performing social media content for DAZN on Facebook was video highlights of Andy Ruiz Jr. beating Anthony Joshua which generated 57.4 thousand responses, on Twitter a related video generated 49.5 thousand responses, while a picture of the knockdown of Joshua by Ruiz received 66.8 thousand Responses on Instagram.
In comparison, the top performing Canelo related content posted by DAZN between August 2, 2018 and August 1, 2019 on Facebook was a video showing highlights of Canelo vs. Daniel Jacobs, which generated 18.2 thousand responses; on Twitter it was a video that generated 11.6 thousand responses showing the moment Canelo beat Rocky Fielding; while on Instagram a video showing Canelo talking in Spanish about being disrespected generated 61.7 thousand responses.
In the last year with 25,652 page views, October 17, 2018 was the day the DAZN Wikipedia page got the most traffic, around the announcement that DAZN had finalized a five year, $365 million deal with Canelo to stream his fights.
Although it created a lot of media buzz, the truth of the matter is that the fans don't feel slighted by the Derevyanchenko not taking place. If anything, with Derevyanchenko and Golovkin most likely fighting October 5, maybe, although unlikely, maybe the fans will see a Canelo vs. Andrade matchup for October as well. If not, I'm not sure even Canelo knows what his next option is.
