General News

Free Canelo fight tickets get distributed

Third- to fifth-grade students with the highest grades in Jalisco’s public primary schools are among those eligible to apply for free tickets for the May 6 fight between hometown world champion boxer Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Great Britain’s John Ryder.

pg11cThe state government has purchased 8,000 tickets to be donated to people without the economic means to see a fight that will fill Guadalajara’s 45,000-capacity Akron Stadium.

Others also eligible for free tickets include girls, boys and adolescents enrolled in state-run sports academies, children undergoing cancer and type-1 diabetes treatments, (and their parents), and campesinos from rural zones of the state.

The state government has jumped aboard the promotion of the fight—Canelo’s first in Mexico for 11 years—hitching it to the celebrations marking 200 years since the founding of Jalisco.

Canelo will go into the fight with Ryder as a clear favorite; anything other than a decisive victory on home turf is unthinkable. But exactly how the 34-year-old British challenger—“I’m not here as a fall guy,” he insists—will cope with the thunderous atmosphere created by fans in the Akron Stadium remains to be seen. Will he wilt, or rise to the occasion? That’s the question serious boxing pundits are asking.

Most other fans simply will simply want to welcome home their hero and soak in an ambience akin to a coronation.