Canelo Alvarez will be back in the building Saturday, even if he will not be back in the ring. The former undisputed champion, sidelined from his annual Cinco de Mayo fight weekend after elbow surgery last year, is planning to attend the pay-per-view card at T-Mobile Arena.
Eddy Reynoso told BoxingScene on Wednesday that Alvarez will be there, a small but useful reminder that boxing’s biggest name is still close to the center of the sport’s loudest nights. The card will stream on Prime Video and DAZN, with David Benavidez headlining against unified WBO/WBA cruiserweight champion Gilberto Ramirez in Benavidez’s first fight at 168lbs since moving up to cruiserweight. Jaime Munguia is also on the bill, fighting for Armando Resendiz’s WBA super-middleweight belt in the co-main event.
For Alvarez, the appearance carries more than ceremonial weight. Since 2015, he has headlined a Cinco de Mayo weekend card every year except in 2018, when he was suspended, and 2020, when the pandemic erased the tradition. Last year’s elbow surgery kept him out of the annual slot altogether, and his most recent fight came on Mexican Independence weekend, when he lost by unanimous decision to now-retired five-division champion Terence Crawford. He enters this weekend watching another major card unfold while his own return remains queued for mid-September in Saudi Arabia.
The larger storyline is the one boxing has been circling for years. Benavidez, now 29 and 31-0 with 25 knockouts, spent a long stretch on pause as the WBC’s top-ranked mandatory challenger while Alvarez held undisputed status at 168lbs. That standoff never produced the meeting fans wanted, and Saturday sends Benavidez higher in weight while Alvarez waits for his next date and considers opponents including Christian Mbilli, Hamzah Sheeraz or Resendiz. De La Hoya will also be at T-Mobile Arena supporting his fighters, including Ramirez and Oscar Duarte, and he called the weekend “Clapback Thursday,” a nod to the noise that follows him wherever his boxers land on a big card.
So the industry gets the version of this rivalry it has been asking for, just not the one it first imagined: Benavidez moving on without Alvarez, and Alvarez appearing at ringside while the schedule he once dominated runs without him.