Mayweather-Canelo and the Future of Boxing

Eric Raskin postulates that a Mayweather loss may be the best thing for the sport:

And in that sense, maybe Mayweather–De La Hoya really was the fight to save boxing — and maybe Mayweather-Canelo is the fight to save it again. Because maybe the question shouldn’t be “What becomes of boxing if its last superstar, Mayweather, loses?” Maybe it’s “What could possibly be better for boxing than Mayweather losing to this particular opponent?”
As a teenager reading the August 1990 issue of Pro Wrestling Illustrated, a phrase in a caption referring to the Ultimate Warrior’s victory over Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania VI has always stuck in my head: “the smoothest transfer of world title power the sport has ever seen.” Never mind that pro wrestling isn’t a sport — Hogan lost directly and cleanly to Warrior, giving his successor an aura of authenticity.
The same happened in boxing in 2007 and 2008. De La Hoya, by far the most bankable star of his era, suffered two defeats in 19 months, at the hands of Mayweather and Pacquiao. Both pound-for-pounders were attracting in the neighborhood of 400,000 PPV buys before taking on Oscar. Since beating De La Hoya, Mayweather’s six fights have averaged 1.17 million buys, while Pacquiao’s eight have averaged 1.06 million. Beating The Man doesn’t always make you The Man, but in these cases it did because the requisite charisma (in one form or another) and elite talent were in place.
De La Hoya lost, twice, but the story wasn’t the death of boxing’s last great star. It was the birth of boxing’s next great stars. And if Mayweather loses on Saturday night, same deal. The 23-year-old Alvarez is the most popular young fighter in North America by a wide margin, even if there’s some debate over just how popular he is. The bigger questions about him concern not his marketability but his ability. Is he actually a special fighter? If it turns out Canelo is special enough to topple Mayweather, he instantly becomes boxing’s newest million-buy superstar, with the erasure of Floyd’s self-ballyhooed undefeated record giving him that final push to the top.
Not to fuel the boxing-is-dying lobby, but there is cause for some concern if Alvarez doesn’t win and isn’t the next big thing. Who are the other candidates right now? Maybe Adrien Broner, but there’s a lot of work to be done there. Almost certainly not Andre Ward, magnificent as he is from a skill perspective. Possibly Gennady Golovkin, but he’s already in his 30s and still rather unproven. Perhaps it's somebody just hitting the pro ranks who we've barely even heard of.
For the moment, Canelo is by far the top candidate.

My main problem with boxing is the reliance on pay-per-view and subscription cable.  The secondary problem probably should be the main problem, but isn't, and that is head trauma.  I'll be sure to watch the ESPN ticker tonight to see who won, but because of the pay-per-view, I won't be watching it, and I just haven't seen any of the main candidates for future stardom.  The sport is passing me by.