Mayweather says Canelo should duck Golovkin

By Boxing News - 12/25/2015 - Comments

1-cotto-canelo-m (9)By Allan Fox: Floyd Mayweather Jr. surprised the boxing world this week when he recommended that WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) should go ahead and duck his WBC #1 mandatory challenger Gennady Golovkin (34-0, 31 KOs) just because he considered him a tough opponent for the red-headed fighter. Mayweather thinks that because Canelo is coming off a difficult fight against Miguel Cotto (40-5, 33 KOs) last month in November, he shouldn’t have to fight Golovkin.

It’s kind of hard pill for a lot of fans to swallow seeing a potentially all-time great like Mayweather advocating that Canelo should duck his WBC mandatory Golovkin. It’s not the stuff of greatness for Mayweather to be openly saying that Canelo should avoid Golovkin because he could make it a difficult fight for him.

If Canelo does what Mayweather wants him to do in ducking the Golovkin fight, it means that he would need to give up his WBC 160lb title unless the World Boxing Council were willing to step in and save Canelo by removing Golovkin as his mandatory for some reason or another. It would look bad if the WBC were to do this, and wouldn’t make Canelo look like the bravest of fighters.

You have to remember; Canelo doesn’t have the weight and age excuse that Mayweather had for why he couldn’t fight Golovkin before retiring. Canelo outweighs Golovkin, and he’s eight years younger than him at 25. A bigger and younger Canelo would like bad if he ducked out of a fight against Golovkin.

Mayweather got away with it because he said he was at the end of his career and that Golovkin was a middleweight, even though Golovkin was lighter than Canelo, who Mayweather beat in 2013. Mayweather was fine with fighting Canelo, but not on board with fighting the lighter Golovkin. That shows you the respect that Mayweather had for Golovkin.

“Canelo just came off a good, exciting victory against a future Hall of Famer, Miguel Cotto, but they’re so fast to try and throw this guy right back in the lion’s den with another guy [Golovkin] that they say is one of the top fighters in boxing,” Mayweather said to fighthype.com. “Why is the promoter rushing and trying to throw Canelo right back in there in another rough and tough fight? If they really care about your health and your well-being, if they really care about you and your family, which they don’t, because I know; I’ve been in this sport forever, so I done seen how it works, but if they really care, me, as a promoter, I’d let that fight build,” Mayweather said.

It kind of looks bad that Mayweather is saying that Canelo should duck the Golovkin fight, because this feeds into some of the perceptions that some boxing fans having about Mayweather being a cherry picker during his career when it came to selecting his opponents. Fans wondered why Mayweather didn’t fight Manny Pacquiao five years ago when he was still in his prime. Boxing fans also wondered why Mayweather never fought Antonio Margarito, Golovkin, Kostya Tszyu, Shane Mosley [when he was in his prime], Canelo [when he was in his prime], Keith Thurman, Jermall Charlo, Demetrius Andrade, Jermell Charlo, and Peter Quillin.

Mayweather didn’t say how longer he wants Canelo to wait before fighting Golovkin, but if it’s five years like Mayweather waited before fighting Pacquiao, then that’s sad matchmaking. It’s good for Canelo to be matched up against an old Golovkin, but it’s bad for boxing fans and definitely bad for Golovkin to get a tough fight at the end of his career. Golovkin might not even be fighting in five years from now. He’ll be 38-years-old and no longer the fighter that he once was.

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“I care about his well-being. It’s not about working harder; it’s about working smarter. We have to care about these fighters’ well-being,” Mayweather said.

It sure sounds like Mayweather is advocating soft match-making when he talks about his ideas about making fights. That’s good obviously for the fighters, but if the fans are stuck with watching mismatches over and over again, I think there’s going to be some attrition. Unless the fights are aimed at clueless casual boxing fans who just want to see someone get drilled into the canvas without knowing who the fighters are, I think it’s bad if fighters are going to be kept out of competitive fights for fear that they might suffer wear and tear.



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