ESPN.com’s Mike Coppinger reported on X on Thursday night that representatives for Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Jake Paul are nearing an agreement for them to compete in a cruiserweight match May 3 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Alvarez-Paul is expected to be an official professional fight, not an exhibition, which Netflix will stream from the home venue of the NHL’s Las Vegas Golden Knights.

Mexico’s Alvarez, 34, is still boxing’s biggest star in the United States. Ranked No. 7 on The Ring’s pound-for-pound list, the four-weight world champion still owns The Ring, IBO, WBA, WBC and WBO super middleweight titles.

Paul has long discussed the possibility of challenging Alvarez, who would be a heavy favorite to silence the trash-talking Paul in a way former UFC fighters, middling boxers, a fellow influencer, a retired NBA point guard and an absurdly past-his-prime Mike Tyson failed to do.

Coppinger reported, now that Alvarez has opted to box Paul, the showdown with fellow four-weight champion Terence Crawford is no longer available to Alvarez. Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs), of Omaha, Nebraska, and Alvarez (62-2-2, 39 KOs) had an agreement in place to fight sometime in September for Alvarez’s super middleweight championships at Allegiant Stadium.

Alvarez’s far less difficult fight with the polarizing Paul (11-1, 7 KOs), a comparative novice from Westlake, Ohio, will be contested at the full cruiserweight limit of 200 pounds, according to Coppinger.

The lowest weight Paul has made as a pro is 183¾ pounds for his eight-round, split-decision defeat to British rival Tommy Fury in February 2023 in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia. Guadalajara’s Alvarez (62-2-2, 39 KOs) has boxed in the light heavyweight division twice, but he hasn’t competed above that division’s limit of 175 pounds during his 19-year professional career.

The 6-foot-1 Paul stands five inches taller than Alvarez, is six years younger (28) and has boxed primarily within the cruiserweight division during five years as a pro. “The Problem Child” officially weighed in at 227¼ pounds for his last fight – an intensely scrutinized unanimous points victory over Tyson, a 58-year-old former heavyweight champ, on November 16 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Tyson revealed afterward that he entered the ring injured. Paul also admitted that he carried Tyson because he didn’t want to knock out a legendary former heavyweight champion Paul admires.

Netflix offered the Paul-Tyson card as the first live sporting event in the wildly successful streaming service’s history to its 283 million subscribers worldwide.

According to a press release from Paul’s MVP Promotions, the Paul-Tyson fight drew a peak of 65 million concurrent streams and an average of 38 million concurrent streams in the United States. The estimated average minute audience globally for Paul-Tyson was 108 million for the live stream and 125 million including non-live viewership that weekend.

Though a lot less historically significant, Paul-Tyson therefore was the most watched boxing match in the United States since Muhammad Ali unanimously outpointed Leon Spinks in their immediate heavyweight championship rematch in September 1978 at The Superdome in New Orleans. An estimated 90 million viewers in the U.S. watched that bout live on ABC a few years before basic cable became prominent in American households.

Alvarez apparently preferred the enormous, eight-figure guarantee he could make for opposing Paul, who will be a huge underdog, over what is believed would have been more money for the more challenging assignment of facing Crawford.

Alvarez already has drawn a lot of criticism among boxing fans and pundits for failing to defend his super middleweight titles against undefeated David Benavidez.

Phoenix’s Benavidez (30-0, 24 KOs) moved up from the super middleweight limit of 168 pounds to the light heavyweight division once it became clear Alvarez wouldn’t fight him. Benavidez outpointed previously unbeaten Cuban southpaw David Morrell Jr. (11-1, 9 KOs) by unanimous decision Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas to become the WBC’s mandatory challenger in the light heavyweight division.

The former WBC super middleweight champ’s victory over Morrell moved him into position to fight the winner of the immediate rematch between undisputed light heavyweight champ Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol. The Russian-born, Montreal-based Beterbiev (21-0, 20 KOs) is set to defend his Ring, IBF, IBO, WBA, WBC and WBO 175-pound crowns versus Bivol (23-1, 12 KOs) on February 22 at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Benavidez is expected to watch Beterbiev-Bivol 2 from a ringside seat. His handlers are likely to discuss the possibility of battling the Beterbiev-Bivol winner next with Turki Alalshikh, head of Riyadh Season and the General Entertainment Authority.