Canelo (USATSI)
Canelo Alvarez's next opponent will be Amir Khan in a highly intriguing bout on May 7. (USATSI)

Canelo Alvarez has finally got his next fight.

The WBC middleweight champion will take on Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs), who will be moving up from 148 pounds to 155 pounds, to take on Alvarez (46-1, 32 KOs) on May 7 in Las Vegas with a venue still to be announced.

Since Canelo beat Miguel Cotto for his WBC title, the boxing world has been waiting to find out who he would defend the belt against first. Many hoped his first defense would be against Gennady Golovkin in a superfight that boxing fans have been hoping to see for the past few years.

Golovkin has the mandatory title shot, but the two camps agreed that each fighter will have one fight in the spring prior to a meeting between the two heavy-handed middleweights in the fall. The issue facing both fighters going into spring fights was that there just aren't enough top-middleweight contenders to make interesting fights with. 

Enter Amir Khan. The British welterweight star will move up to 155 pounds for the first time -- the catchweight preferred by Canelo. Khan moved up to welterweight in 2014 and has won all three of his bouts by way of decision, most recently earning a convincing win over Chris Algieri. 

With the welterweight division devoid of big challenges now that Floyd Mayweather is gone and Manny Pacquiao is retiring, Khan will once again step up in weight classes. It's a daring risk for Khan, who will be facing a kind of power he's never seen before in Canelo, especially since Khan is just a few years removed from fighting at 140 pounds. 

For Canelo, getting Khan to move up is a major coup. Few fighters can carry an event by themselves the way Canelo can with his massive following as the top Mexican fighter, but landing an intriguing opponent for his Cinco de Mayo weekend bout will only help this fight sell even more on HBO pay-per-view.