By Dan Ambrose: If Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) wants to hold onto his newly won WBC middleweight title then the clock is ticking for him, as he only has 15 days to make a decision whether to keep the WBC title or defend it against mandatory challenger Gennady “Triple G” Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs), and one of those days are now gone.
Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez doesn’t mean to put pressure on the 25-year-old Canelo, but he says that Canelo has to make his mind up within two weeks whether he’s going to face Golovkin or give up his WBC title.
Canelo has to let the World Boxing Council know in the next two weeks if he’s going to agree to fight Golovkin by early next year. If not, then the WBC will step in and strip their WBC title from Canelo so that Golovkin can take it from him. In an ideal world, Canelo will do the right thing and agree to defend his title against Golovkin, but I don’t know that he’ll do that.
Canelo did a lot of squawking last Saturday night about wanting to fight Golovkin following his close 12 round decision win over Miguel Cotto (40-5, 33 KOs) at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. Talking about wanting to fight Golovkin is one thing, but it’s another thing altogether for Canelo to actually sign a contract and get in the ring with the Kazakhstan fighter.
Canelo’s big weight advantage, which was clearly the reason for his win last Saturday night against Cotto, will evaporate overnight if he gets inside the ring with Golovkin. Canelo can bulk up to the 180s, but that’s still not going to be like the weight advantages that he’s been accustomed to enjoying in his fights, and I don’t think it’ll be enough for him to beat Golovkin in this fight.
“It wasn’t easy [for Canelo]. Cotto’s a great champion,” Sanchez said to Fighthype. “I thought Canelo’s youth would take over in the second half of the fight, and that’s exactly what happened. I thought Canelo did well, but he’s not on Gennady’s level. He’s got 15 days to make up his mind per the WBC. Once he does, we’ll find out. It’s up to Canelo. Like I said, he’s got 15 days and after that if he doesn’t want to fight us, then that’s OK. We’ve move on to the next one. The judges’ scores were a little too far apart,” Sanchez said.
I agree with Sanchez. It wasn’t an easy fight for Canelo despite him winning. His size advantage helped him get the better of Cotto in the second half of the fight, but it was far from being the one-sided fight that the judges had it scored as.
If Canelo doesn’t make a move in the next two weeks to let the WBC know whether he’ll be defending his WBC title against Golovkin or not, then it’s going to be the responsibility of the WBC to strip Canelo of his title. I hope that Canelo doesn’t just sit on the WBC title defending it against whoever he pleases rather than facing Golovkin like he said he would.
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