THE MONEY GAME | LSU

 

CANELO VS. MUGUIA: UNDERCARD DRAWS CRITICISM AHEAD OF SATURDAY NIGHT SHOWDOWN

 Fans are questioning the hefty $89.99 price tag for this Saturday’s Canelo Alvarez vs. Jaime Munguia PPV card, given that the undercard lacks any interesting fights to justify the high cost of ordering the event on Amazon Prime Video and DAZN PPV.

 Canelo (60-2-2, 39 KOs) will defend his undisputed super middleweight championship against Munguia (43-0, 34 KOs) in the main event. That’s a solid match-up, but it’s not the blockbuster that would justify the near hundred-dollar price the organizers are charging for the event.

The Warm-Up Undercard Fights

Mario Barrios vs. Fabio Maidana: In the co-main event, Mario Barrios will defend his WBC interim welterweight title against Fabian Maidana, who is best known for being related to Marcos Maidana. Fabian isn’t ranked in the top 15, and his best career win came against Andrey Klimov in 2018.

Brandon Figuera vs. Jessie Magdaleno: Former WBA super bantamweight champion Figueroa (24-1, 18 KOs) lost to his title in 2021 and now holds the WBC featherweight interim belt after beating Mark Magsayo. Figueroa will defend his interim belt against the 32-year-old former WBO 122-lb champion Magdaleno (29-2, 18 KOs), who is coming off a one-sided 12-round unanimous decision against Raymond Ford last April.

Eimantas Stanionis vs. Gabriel Maestre: Stanionis defends his WBA ‘regular’ welterweight title against #4 ranked WBA contender Maestre (6-0-1, 5 KOs) Maestre is a 2012 Olympian from Venezuela, who hasn’t been tested at the professional level against quality opposition yet. He has a 10-round draw against Taras Shelestyuk in 2022.

Organizers Need to Sweeten the Deal

Fans feel the Canelo-Munguia fight is not interesting enough to warrant the steep price without a worthwhile undercard.  They see the undercard as being just thrown together with washed-up guys and paper champions.

Stanionis and Barrios aren’t viewed as true champions, and Figueroa and Magadeno are viewed as over-the-hill. Fabian Maidana isn’t a world-class fighter, and Maestre is an older guy with 7 fights on his resume against weak opposition, and he already has a draw on his resume.

Given the poor undercard, fans aren’t excited about paying the $89.99 price tag to order the Canelo-Munguia card on Amazon Prime Video PPV, DAZN PPV, and PPV dot com.

The organizers aren’t going to drop the price of the event, but it would be in their best interest to add a worthy fight to the undercard to motivate fans to purchase the event and give the ones that have their money’s worth.

- Tim Compton

SOURCE: CHIEFS SIGN TRAVIS KELCE TO A 2-YEAR, $34.25M CONTRACT

 KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The Chiefs gave tight end Travis Kelce a significant raise with a new two-year contract Monday.

A source told ESPN's Adam Schefter that the deal is worth $34.25 million with $17 million fully guaranteed for this season and most of the rest to be guaranteed on the third day of the 2025 league year.

"Hard to put in words what Travis means to this organization, this city, and he was certainly a priority to adjust his contract for us and it was something that was important for Clark [Hunt]. So very fitting that Travis [is] now the highest-paid tight end in these two years," general manager Brett Veach said Monday.

In a video posted to X by the Chiefs, Kelce said it was "an honor and a pleasure and I can't wait to get after it these next two years ... Chiefs forever.''

Quarterback Patrick Mahomes celebrated the extension for his favorite target by posting to X, "I told yall I'll never let him leave!! Congrats my guy! @tkelce''

"Every now and then you have one of these guys that are outliers and certainly Travis is one of those players," Veach said when asked how much longer Kelce, 34, can play. "Today we had a chance to get out there in Phase 2 [of the offseason program] and guys were out there running around, and Travis was the first guy in line, and I mean he looked like he was 28 years old.

"The odds of someone playing this far into the thirties are very low, but it does happen, and it happens with just unicorns in the profession, and Travis is one of those and we'll certainly celebrate this with him and hopefully we can ride this thing even longer. So, we'll just have to wait and see. But I've seen no signs of [Kelce] slowing down and everyone notices the kind of postseason he had, and he just found that extra gear and these special ones, these special players are always able to find that extra gear.

"If anybody could do it, Travis can.''

Kelce in 2023 fell 16 yards short of his eighth straight 1,000-yard season. He missed the first game of the season with a knee injury and sat out the last game to rest for the playoffs. Seven straight 1,000-yard seasons is a record for his position.

Kelce, who has been selected to nine consecutive Pro Bowls and is a four-time first-team All-Pro, had 93 receptions for 984 yards and five touchdowns last season.

In the postseason, he added 32 catches for 355 yards and four touchdowns as he helped the Chiefs win a second consecutive Super Bowl and third in five seasons.

Kelce has 907 receptions for 11,328 yards and 74 touchdowns in 11 NFL seasons. In 22 postseason games, he has an NFL-record 165 catches for 1,903 yards and 19 touchdowns.

Kelce has also become a crossover star, thanks in part to his relationship with pop icon Taylor Swift and his appearances on shows such as "Saturday Night Live." The podcast he hosts with his brother and former Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce has become one of the most popular across several genres, and he will soon host a quiz show on Amazon Prime.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

- Adam Teicher, ESPN Staff Writer