The major news coming out of the boxing world today is that Canelo Alvarez is suing both Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy promotion and the streaming service DAZN.
The 30-year-old, who is currently ranked as the world’s best active boxer by several companies and promotions, signed a £280million 11-fight contract back in 2018.
Alvarez is guaranteed a payment of £27m per-fight, which is at the centre of the lawsuit.
Overall, the Mexican is suing for breach of contract, intentional and negligent interference with a contract, fraud and breach of fiduciary duty, as per The Athletic.
DAZN pay Golden Boy a licence fee of £30.9m, which makes up Alvarez’s purse for each fight, but the streaming service are believed to have offered Alvarez roughly half of the £27m, believing that he failed to fight a premier opponent as stipulated in the contract.
Alvarez has not fought this year, with his May scheduled bout against Billy Joe Saunders called off due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The lawsuit filed reads: “Despite repeated promises that an alternative offer was imminent, DAZN failed to make a proposal to either Golden Boy Promotions or Alvarez for several months.
“When Golden Boy Promotions and Alvarez proposed opponents, DAZN refused to confirm that it was prepared to broadcast Alvarez’s September 2020 bout or that it would pay the contract license fee.”
The fighter is also including Golden Boy in his lawsuit after they failed to find an alternative broadcasting partner, and he claims the pair have caused a minimum of £216m in damages.
Alvarez has an exceptionally strong boxing record, suffering just one career loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2013 alongside 53 wins and two draws.
He is a four-division world champion, and moved up two classes to light heavyweight in his last bout, where he defeated the Russian Sergey Kovalev.
The Mexican had been ordered by the WBC to fight Avni Yildirim for the vacant super-middleweight title, but that was met by original opposition from DAZN, and the lawsuit could throw the fight into further doubt.