De La Hoya: Canelo vs. Golovkin will be a huge fight down the road

By Boxing News - 05/10/2015 - Comments

Canelo Alvarez v James Kirkland(Photo Credit:Ed Mulholland/Golden Boy/Golden Boy via Getty Images) By Dan Ambrose: With Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s impressive 3rd round knockout win over James Kirkland (32-2, 28 KOs) last Saturday night, boxing fans want to knock if Canelo is finally ready to step inside the ring with WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin. After all, Canelo has fought three straight fights in the middleweight division in catch-weighs of 155 pounds.

Canelo himself said last night that a fight between him and Golovkin will have to wait until the future because the two of them are fighting in different divisions at the moment, even though Canelo’s last three fights have taken place in the same division as Golovkin.

Further, Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions said that a fight between Canelo and Golovkin will have to wait until the future before it can take place.

“The world knows Canelo-GGG will be a huge mega fight down the road,” De La Hoya said after the fight. “We’re going to analyze the all the options for whose next for Canelo, We’re obviously going to be watching very closely on June 6 when Cotto fights.”

Golovkin is just going to have to keep winning and staying in his separate lane from Canelo. He’s not going to depend on Canelo or Miguel Cotto in giving him a chance to fight them anytime soon. Golovkin has a fight this Saturday, May 16th against Willie Monroe Jr. (19-1, 6 KOs) at the Forum in Inglewood, California. It should draw high ratings on HBO. Even if Canelo and Cotto never faces Golovkin, he can still become very popular without them by continually beating the best possible opponent each time he fights. Canelo and Cotto are doing the same thing. They’re not beating high quality opponents. They’re beating guys like Kirkland, a broken down Sergio Martinez, Delvin Rodriguez and Alfredo Angulo.

The Canelo-Golovkin fight might lose some of the meaning if Canelo gets beaten again. It’s only an interesting fight for fans while Canelo is still winning. He was beaten by Mayweather in 2013, and almost beaten by Austin Trout and Erislandy Lara.

The fight that De La Hoya wants to make for Canelo next is against WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto for September or whenever they can get the 34-year-old Cotto into the ring. To show you how badly De La Hoya wants that fight for Canelo, De La Hoya has said in the past that he would make that fight even if they were coming off defeats. That’s obviously not the case with Canelo with his 3rd round knockout win over Kirkland last night. Cotto will be defending his WBC 160 pound title next month on June 6th against former world champion Daniel Geale on June 6th. Geale can’t punch and it should be an easy fight for Cotto unless he winds up getting out-boxed again like he was against Austin Trout and Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Canelo looked good for the most part last night in stopping Kirkland in three rounds. Canelo had Kirkland reeling each time he connected cleanly with his right hands to the head. Kirkland was down once in the 1st and two more times in the 3rd. It was clear from the 1st round that Kirkland was going to have problems handling the power from Canelo. It wasn’t that Kirkland’s chin was weak, but rather than he was doing nothing to protect it. Instead of keeping his guard up while coming forward, Kirkland had his hands down by his sides as he would plod forward. This enabled Canelo to land a lot of his best power shots in their fight at the Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas.



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