By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions president Oscar De La Hoya is hoping he can turn his flagship fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KOs) into the future No.1 pay-per-view fighter once Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr clear out and retire from boxing. But there’s one fighter who could ruin Canelo’s chances of striking it rich with gold from millions of boxing fans, and that’s WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin.
The two fighters sparred with each other four years ago Golovkin rumored to have had his way with Canelo. That was when Canelo was only 20-years-old, and he’s now 24.
To be honest, I don’t see a lot of difference in Canelo’s fighting style or ability now compared to back in 2011. He’s pretty much the same fighter. He just matured early with his career.
“Gennady Golovkin is a strong fighter. At the time, I was 20 years old,” Canelo said via esnewsreporting.com. “I was in Big Bear two times and those two we sparred. He was a heavier fighter therefore I was able to throw hard shots at him.
Golovkin was also able to throw hard punches to me as well. It was good sparring; he’s a strong fighter more than anything.”
De La Hoya has done a good job with the match-making for Canelo. He’s not put Canelo in with Golovkin, and that has to be seen as wise decision on De La Hoya’s part. If he puts Canelo in with Golovkin, Canelo would be at risk of getting knocked out and beaten up badly.
There’s also a chance that Canelo could pull off a huge upset and raise his own stock in doing so. But it just looks like De La Hoya isn’t willing to take that risk with Canelo despite the fact that the payoff would be tremendous if Canelo were to win.
Right now the argument for Canelo not being matched up against Golovkin is that the Kazakhstan fighter fights at middleweight while Canelo fights at junior middleweight. The truth is Canelo is fighting at middleweight too now, because his last two fights have been at a catch-weight of 155.
Canelo’s next fight against James Kirkland (32-1, 28 KOs) on May 9th will also be held at a catch-weight of 155 pounds. That makes Canelo a middleweight. The middleweight division is from 155-160.
Canelo may not want to officially call himself a middleweight, but the reality is that he’s fighting at middleweight now more than he is at junior middleweight. You can’t call yourself a junior middleweight if you’re consistently fighting at middleweight.
For that reason Canelo has no excuse for not taking the fight with Golovkin because they’re both fighting in the same weight class now. It’s obviously going to look bad with each fight Canelo takes at middleweight if he doesn’t opt to fight Golovkin, because the boxing fans aren’t going to be fooled with his 155 pound catch-weight and see it as a junior middleweight bout. It’s not. It’s a middleweight bout once you go from 154 to 155.
I think Canelo should get it over with and just agree to fight Golovkin. If he loses badly to Golovkin then he’ll at least know that he’s not the No.1 middleweight in the division. Canelo could then move on start facing the other middleweights so that he can find out where he stands in the division.
Canelo would need to fight Miguel Cotto, Daniel Jacobs, Andy Lee and Peter Quillin for him to really find out where he stands in the division. However, I don’t think De La Hoya will let Canelo take that fight if he gets beaten by Golovkin. I see him being put on a soft diet with him facing more guys like Kirkland and Alfredo Angulo to get him winning again.
Comments are closed.