Canelo: I don’t have to do what Golovkin wants

By Boxing News - 11/25/2015 - Comments

canelo100By Dan Ambrose: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) made a lot of fans happy last Saturday night when he announced that he’s ready and willing to fight WBC interim middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) to show fans that he’s not afraid to fight anybody. Well, now it looks like Canelo is setting up conditions for Golovkin to meet in order to fight him.

If Golovkin wants the fight with him, he might need to fight Canelo at 155lbs, the weight class that Canelo has created recently in his last four fights. It seems that he likes to fight at 155lbs, and he doesn’t see any reason why he should change that, even though he’s now the WBC middleweight champion.

“I’m not afraid of any fighter. GGG is a great fighter, and he is my friend,” Alvarez said via ESPN.com. “I have respect for him, but if we do fight, it’s going to be at my [natural] weight class [of 155 pounds]. I’m the champion. I don’t have to do what he wants.”

I can’t believe Canleo isn’t aware that he cannot force a catch-weight of 155lbs on Golovkin when he’s the mandatory challenger? Is Canelo that in the dark about the rules that he actually believes that he can force Golovkin – or any mandatory challenger – to fight him at 155? If so, then Canelo’s team needs to sit him down and explain the rules for what he can or can’t do when defending his titles against mandatory challengers.

To be sure, Canlo can force a voluntary challenger to fight him at his special 155lb weight, but not a mandatory challenger. The only thing Canelo do is threat to vacate his WBC title if Golovkin fails to agree to his strength-draining 155lb catch-weight.

I knew it was too good to be true when Canelo was talking about finally being ready to fight Golovkin. It looks like Canelo is now weaseling out of the Golovkin fight by saying that he’s got to agree to fighting at his own special weight at 155lbs.

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It’s hard to say what will happen now. I wouldn’t be surprised if the World Boxing Council changes their rules to allow Canelo to force a catch-weight of 155lbs for his mandatory title defenses. If that happens, it’ll make it almost impossible for challengers to get a fair shake in challenging champions like Canelo. They would have to drain down to 155lb each time they fight for the WBC middleweight title.

It works out well for Canelo, because he’s very good at making the 155lb weight limit and then ballooning up to the 170s. For middleweight contenders, it’ll be difficult for them to drain down to 155 to challenge Canelo.

The only fighters that this wouldn’t hurt is junior middleweights and welterweights that would have no problems fighting Canelo at his special 155lb weight division. However, with Canelo’s ability to rehydrate into the 170s, any fighters from the junior middleweight and welterweight divisions would be at a huge disadvantage against him in moving up to 155 to face him.

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Canelo would have a huge size advantage against fighters moving up in weight to fight him. We saw that last Saturday night with how Canelo made Cotto look small in comparison in terms of size.

Canelo needs to advise the World Boxing Council in less than two weeks whether he intends on defending his newly won WBC middleweight title against Golovkin next. With Golovkin being the WBC mandatory challenger, Canelo can’t force a catch-weight in this fight. He can ask Golovkin to agree to it, but if he says no, then Canelo will need to vacate the title if he stubbornly insists on the 155lb catch-weight.

If the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight doesn’t take place, then we could see a rematch between Canelo and Miguel Cotto. The two fighters had rematch language in their contracts from last Saturday, and Cotto is already complaining about the odd scoring of the fight by the three judges. He felt he won the fight, and a lot of boxing fans felt that the fight should have been scored a lot closer. That’s kind of a flimsy reason to justify a rematch between the two fighters, but I think Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya would jump at any excuse to have him fight Cotto again rather than putting him in with Golovkin.



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