Canelo- Khan L.A.

By:Raymundo Dioses

(Photo: Joe Serrat)

The 80 degree Southern California day started with Briton Amir Khan and Mexican Canelo Alvarez holding court together alongside promoter Oscar De La Hoya while Entertainment Tonight host Mario Lopez conducted a television interview in front of the famous Universal Studios fountain-set globe located in Universal City, California.

Though few fans gathered around the early afternoon taping, fans would later number in the hundreds for what represented the final stop of a three day, two continent tour to hype their May 7 bout, with the press tour starting in London, England on Monday, zipping back across the pond to New York, and finally landing in Los Angeles at Universal City Walk.

With early interviews done, both fighters were moved to conduct ESPN obligations, which provided ample time for both fighters to relax a bit and log some time on a rock-em-sock-em set up in the green room with their respective teams.

As 3 PM hit both fighters made their way to the AMC theatre set inside Universal City Walk, which was bought out by Golden Boy Promotions for the entirety of the last-stop press conference.

The silver screen setting was a fitting one for the 25 year old Canelo who dons movie star looks and a strong demeanor about himself.

The atmosphere was timid and quiet while Khan, flanked by his trainer Virgil Hunter fielded the standard questions from the media, and ODLH (who was fighting off a head cold) luckily brought some light and fervor into the room when he took his media rounds, even bringing up disgraceful Presidential candidate Donald Trump and also bringing up once again that yes, Canelo does intend to face GGG. Someday.

A whole different tone was set when the dapper Guadalajara native entered through the theatre exit walking lone without an entourage and strongly walking towards the front seats in the movie picture room.

Canelo casually and without caution decided to not stand in front of the banners designed to be in the background of media shots to promote the fight (where Khan and ODLH stood before him), and instead plopped comfortably in the front row of the low set chairs in order to feel more at comfort than standing amongst 20-30 writers all huddled around and creating a body-heat induced circle.

What was even more impressive than the young stars entrance into the theatre was the casual and sometimes defiant tone in which he answered questions from the media.

Among the first to get a response was when Canelo was asked to address the much discussed catch weight stipulations attached to his recent fights and if for this fight he will come in on fight night as heavy as 175, to which Canelo replied in a not so pleasant tone that he will fight at any weight he chooses as it’s his career, and if he wants to fight at 180, he will fight at 180, and if he wants to fight at 190, he will fight at 190, punctuated with a ‘it’s my problem’.

Canelo laughed off a report from a journalist that Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. stated that he has not accomplished enough in his career and he needs to fight JCCJ in order to do so. Canelo threw out a GGG esque’ ‘you serious’ by replying to the journalist with a smile, “Really?”

Although both his opponent and Hall of Fame promoter took their turns inside the theatre, it was obvious who the star of the show was: Canelo.