By Dan Ambrose: While the golden-haired Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya says that a fight between the 24-year-old Canelo and IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) can’t take place until 2017 at the earliest, Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler sees it as a fight that can take place next year in 2016.
The 33-year-old Golovkin wants the fight right now, and he doesn’t see any reason to make it wait two years like De La Hoya wants. Loeffler believes that he’ll be able to get Canelo in the ring a year from now to face Golovkin.
Canelo vs. Golovkin fight won’t mean a whole lot if Canelo gets beaten beforehand by WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto in September this year, of if he loses to Cotto in early 2016. The only way Golovkin-Canelo winds up as a big fight is if Canelo can continue his short winning streak to go into the Golovkin fight with wins under his belt, not more losses.
Canelo was already beaten by Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2013, and Canelo has arguable losses to Austin Trout and Erislandy Lara as well. That’s three defeats on Canelo’s record, in addition to his controversial draw against Jorge Juarez in 2006. I saw that fight and I had Juarez winning easily 3 rounds to 1. I thought it was poor scoring from the judges in giving the more popular Canelo a draw in a fight in which he was dominated by Juarez.
“It’s not realistic to fight Canelo until at least next year,” Loeffler said to ESPN.com. “The fight needs to be built, but the way Canelo sold 31,000 tickets last week and the way Gennady sells here in L.A., I don’t know how much more it needs to be built.”
I’m not sure that De La Hoya is aware of it or not, but 2016, Canelo is going to really need the Golovkin fight because the pressure will be on Canelo by then to face the good junior middleweights like the Charlo brothers, Demetrius Andrade and Erislandy Lara. I don’t know that Canelo can beat any of them without controversy. If Canelo loses to one or more of those fighters, you can bet that his popularity will nose dive, and he won’t continue to be able to fight on PPV. That’s why Canelo needs to take the big money fight against Golovkin while it’s still on the table because once Canelo starts losing to Andrade, the Charlo brothers and Lara, it won’t be a big deal for him to fight Golovkin any longer.
De La Hoya can certainly steer Canelo around Andrade, the Charlo brothers, Andrade and Lara, but there’s really no one else for Canelo to fight at 154 other than those guys. They are clearly the best fighters in the junior middleweight division at this time. De La Hoya will make Canelo look silly if he matches him against fighters like Ishe Smith, Cornelius Bundrage, Joshua Clottey and Carlos Molina. Those guys aren’t considered to be in the same league as Lara, Andrade and the Charlo brothers.
“I stay here. I am the real champion,” Golovkin said. “I want unification. Let’s go, let’s do it guys [Cotto]. Who is No. 1 right now? Bring it on. I will show you.”
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