Once AJ fights Miller, both he and Canelo will have gone not only to New York, but to Madison Square Garden for the first time in their careers.

Parallels?


NONE.


Joshua's going to MSG for good marketing reasons. He's fighting a highly-ranked U.S. heavyweight, who happens to be from New York. He's fighting on this side of the pond for the first time in his career, something hugely important if he is to capture the U.S. market and increase his global appeal. Hopefully there will be other AJ fights in the U.S., as well as in the UK, because you can't ignore either fan base.

Why did Canelo go to MSG? He was already a well-known entity in the U.S. and probably abroad. He's had the silver spoon treatment since he started boxing, carefully orchestrated by GBP, whose president Fishnets protects his investment more than the gold at Ft. Knox. He really had no need to go to New York. So why did he go? Because it was a well-calculated move to pick up a trinket at another weight class, against the weakest champion of any of the weight divisions. Low hanging fruit to the Nth power. GBP knew they could leave the friendly confines (and bought judges) of the Mexico-Las Vegas-Texas-Southern Cal territory and fight in Madison Square Garden. Hostile fans wouldn't be a problem, as Fielding hails from the UK and if anything, they were closer to Canelo's home turf.

Just a coincidence, that's all.

So while I applaud and encourage AJ to keep fighting in the States once in awhile, I also know it'll be a cold day in hell before Canelo leaves his backyard again. If Canelo ever flies across the pond to fight someone in another continent, it'll be because the guy's clinically blind, 50 years old, 3 divisions undersized, or all of the above.