“A Lion doesn’t lose sleep over opinion of a sheep,” declared His Excellency Turki Alalshikh proudly on X after pulling an ace and roping Canelo Alvarez into a four-fight deal with the Riyadh Season amidst his ongoing negotiations with Jake Paul and his Most Valuable Promotions for a May fight, leaving Paul empty handed. However, the opinions of boxing’s biggest names should amount to something, right?

For the past few months, the combat world had no idea what the future holds for Canelo. The speculations of the dream fight against Terence Crawford excited everyone. Everyone was appalled when the Mexican star almost ditched that fight for a massive payday against Jake Paul. However, he changed his mind at the last moment as HE Alalshikh was able to tempt him and according to many fans, saved this sport. But what do the unified super middleweight champion’s fellow boxers think about this deal? Let’s take a look.

No business like Canelo Alvarez business

Ahead of the Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol 2, Jon-Bernard Kairouz from Boxing Worldwide asked the opinion of many proclaimed boxing personalities on the Canelo and Saudi deal that seemingly left Jake Paul high and dry. “Canelo made the right decision signing with Saudi Arabia over YouTuber Jake Paul?” asked Kairouz.

While most personalities decided to answer with a simple ‘Yes or No,’ WBC Lightweight champion, Shakur Stevenson was far more outspoken in answering the question. He claimed that even though Canelo Alvarez would have earned a massive paycheck against Jake Paul, in the end, it “is just one fight.” On the other hand, “With Saudi, he got a bunch of fights on the table. He’s going to make a bunch of money, ” claimed Sugar.

Cinnamon has a two-year contract with Riyadh Season involving four fights. He is all set to face William Scull in May, followed by the massive fight against Terence Crawford in September. He will have two more fights in 2025. While the opponents are not confirmed, reports are suggesting we can see a rematch against Dmitry Bivol early next year. Not only are these fights far more tempting for boxing fans, but in the long run, the Guadalajara native is going to earn far more than he would have in one fight against The Problem Child.

Stevenson declared the decision by Cinnamon as a very smart one. He acknowledged that “Canelo is a very smart businessman. So respect to him,” exclaimed the Newark native. Boxing fans are relieved now that the unified super middleweight champion has opted out of the fight against the YouTuber-turned-boxer. However, they still were left wondering what would have happened. Well, Paul’s co-promoter Nakisa Bidarian is here to paint a clear picture.

Loyalty caused Jake Paul’s to lose out

In a recent interview with CNN, Badarian revealed that MVP’s dedication to staying with their distribution partner proved to be detrimental to the negotiations. “In the end, it failed because they wanted to do it on pay-per-view at the last minute, and we had committed to our distribution partner, Netflix. We refused to give in, and they refused to give in,” revealed Nakisa Bidarian.

It looks like Jake Paul and MVP wanted to stick with streaming the fight on Netflix. After the huge success of his fight against Mike Tyson, it doesn’t make sense to switch. However, Canelo Alvarez, being the smart businessman he is, wanted a PPV model, which would have given him more share of the profit.

The fundamental disagreement over the broadcaster, followed by HE Alalshikh’s timely offer, made the choice quite simple for Canelo. Do you think Canelo Alvarez made the right choice? Let us know your thoughts down below.